


Of Devotion and Rage

by seademons



Series: Same Universe, Different Stories [3]
Category: Hiveswap
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, Government Conspiracy, Introspection, M/M, Quadrant Vacillation, Resistance, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-19 19:00:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 67,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seademons/pseuds/seademons
Summary: Scene: second floor bedroom of Building 27-A, inhabited by trolls, underwritten by the Government, to serve as workforce for the human race. Living conditions are below satisfactory and the future is unpromising, but Xefros is uncaring of that. Last night, the tetrarch gave him something to think about and it completely changed his stance in regards to all that he knew, or thought that he knew.Alternatively, Xefros is in love and a lot more dangerous than he looks.





	1. Headed towards a fucked up holiday

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final work of the series that logically stands by itself, but that I would recommend reading part two for further detail of the first few chapters, since these stories chronologically run parallel to each other. You don't have to do that, though. The overall understanding of this work alone isn't dictated by the rest of the series. 
> 
> The events transcribed below immediately follow the end of [Flip For Him](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12780708) (NSFW), which also isn't a necessary read. 
> 
> Song recs!
> 
> 1\. [Boyfriend](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJOHoiPGpac) by Tegan and Sara  
> 2\. [First Time He Kissed a Boy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et8R5fZOARo) by Kadie Elder  
> 3\. [Holy](https://youtu.be/hdYiYjuf0ko?t=110) by Zolita  
> 4\. [feelings are fatal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXy0aYCJokg) by mxmtoon  
> Chapter title: [Gods and Monsters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEXykmKWebQ) by Lana Del Rey
> 
> Please enjoy.

Lying on his bedroom floor, the tetrarch spoke of the revolution. He discoursed at length on the threats imposed by the humans, on the lack of troll rights, and dreamed of an uprising where he took the forefront. His voice quivered with his passion, overflowed with conviction, making Xefros smile in the dark. The carpet was cold under his body, the side that he lay on, and he wondered if the tetrarch felt it, too, or if the heat of his enthusiasm kept him warm. Xefros tugged the hem of his shirt down, shivering; a fleeting thought brought him back to the night before, but he tried to not dwell on it. They hadn’t talked about it, or really acknowledged it yet, and he wouldn’t be the first to bring it up, either. Things were fine like this; he didn’t have to go and take the tetrarch’s attention away from his dream just because he didn’t really know where they stood anymore, or if last night meant anything, or if they would ever do it again, even if those were the only thoughts that painfully consumed his entire being. It was fine. The tetrarch stared at the ceiling, speaking of topics that Xefros didn’t listen to, that phased right through him, while he watched the movement of the tetrarch’s hand, abstract to illustrate, a pattern of self-expression, and wished he could hold it, lace their fingers together, grip his hand. 

They held hands, sometimes, when coming and going, from class to the food court, from campus to the building, from their rooms to the cafeteria, whenever the tetrarch felt like it, whenever he got a little bit more handsy than usual. He didn’t use to be so affectionate; this had been an evolving change that had become more prominent just recently, and that Xefros had started to really strongly resonate with. He had started looking forward to those sparse moments of physical intimacy, and still felt triumphant under the hold of such an important and influential figure, as if brandishing their status to the public eye made it even more official, somehow. As if the entirety of the building didn’t already know that they were together. It had always been an immense honor to have been acknowledged alongside the tetrarch, publicly linked to him in any way, privately addressed as his moirail. It brought color to his face and wind to his lungs every single time, without fail; a concrete reminder that he had, somehow, been worthy enough to have taken the title. That the tetrarch had hand-picked him, over all the others, to share a quadrant with. His heart beat stronger simply at the memories of it; the way that the tetrarch had leaned in closer to him, voice soft, full of feeling, to ask him the question that had made his life worth something. 

He shivered, and his cheeks burned, so he turned his face to the floor and hid it against the carpet. That had been the best day of his life. He remembered very clearly the way that the tetrarch had grinned at his positive answer, happy and bright, his cheeks round with it, his soul beaming. He smiled at the memory, flattered to have made the tetrarch so content. Proud that he had been able to do something like that. 

“Xefros.” 

The word startled him, made him promptly turn to face the tetrarch, lying beside him, staring straight at him. In the dark of the room, partially illuminated by the half-drawn blinds, he saw the two eyes that watched him, currently uncovered by the aviators. He stared back, blankly, feeling his own eyes widen because he hadn’t been listening, and this was probably a callout to that. He almost already started feeling guilty beforehand, his mind working fast to whip out an apology, to excuse his inexcusable behavior. 

“We need to make a good first impression this Friday.” 

Oh, right. The rebellious meeting this week, of course. The first of many to come that the tetrarch had single-handedly organized for the past few days, and done an incredible job of it, too. Xefros had almost forgotten about it, too engulfed in his own thoughts, too lost within himself to remember that the outside world existed and he was a part of it. That he was expected, or, actually, obligated to attend the meeting this week. He briefly recalled something about being a co-host for it, but the tetrarch had probably seen the very obvious flaws of that plan and gone back on it now. Xefros didn’t know. He nodded. 

“It’s the first time we’ll gather at a venue so it has to be impactful.” 

“Do you know what we’re going to do?” He asked, since he literally had no idea of the answer. They had never held an official meeting before; the rebellion had always been composed of conspiratorial whisperings hushed to one another over lunch or dinner, with a different troll here and there, plus their consistent group of friends, but never a room full of people watching the tetrarch up front, standing before them all, giving a speech. He didn’t even know how a co-host would fit in this scenario, if he were still one. 

“We’ll give them something to think about.” The tetrarch told him, full of conviction, far more confident about this than he was, which was reassuring. It calmed him. He knew that he didn’t have to worry with the tetrarch in the lead. 

He listened to the tetrarch talk until it was too late into the night to stay up anymore, especially considering that it was a school night and that the campus awaited them in the morning for more servitude classes, which he didn’t terribly hate. They had every period together, and the tetrarch always sat next to him, usually with an arm across the back of his seat or with a hand in his own, so it wasn’t all bad, even if today hadn’t been the case, but that only made him look forward to tomorrow even more. He got up with the tetrarch and saw him to the door, held it open for him, half expecting something, half not expecting anything to have changed between them. The tetrarch simply bid him goodnight, flashed him a smile, and left. He closed the door with a vague feeling in his chest. 

Maybe last night really hadn’t changed anything. On the one hand, he was glad that they were still the same as they had always been, but on the other… It felt as if they had been progressing into something more, something greater, something that resonated far better with him, more strongly, that had him breathless and wishing for more. It sunk his heart a bit to watch the tetrarch walk out without a kiss, without a hug, with nothing for him, but he didn’t blame anyone for it. It was selfish to want more than what the tetrarch already gave him on a daily basis, anyway. He should’ve been grateful instead. Maybe the night before had just been a special one, an exception, and not the rule. He could live with that. He told himself, if this was what the tetrarch wanted, then he’d make himself live with it. 

The following day brought them some upsetting news that they weren’t very surprised to hear, boiling emotions on the tetrarch’s end that were carefully kept in check under his unbreakable nonchalance, a little bit of melancholy on Xefros’s end, and very intense longing for a single touch, a single brush of the fingers, a single look from the tetrarch to have his skin burning, but nothing. All day, nothing, just space between them and cold hands. No arm across the back of his seat during class, no hand-holding across campus, no hand on his thigh or gripping his forearm, nothing, and his palms tingled, and his breath came in shorter. He waited for it all day, he expected it that night, laid down on his stomach next to the tetrarch hoping he’d touch his face or brush the bangs from his eyes. Hoping for  _ something _ but the tetrarch was so livid, so angry with the news from earlier that it was all that he talked about, and all that he thought of, without room left in his mind to really notice Xefros’ petty wishes. His petty little troubles. 

“He’s a disgusting piece of shit.” The tetrarch hissed through his teeth, baring them in disgust, making Xefros watch his lips and the sharp ends of his fangs and want them on his face, just like that one night, just how they had done it before. The tetrarch kissing him hard, the tongue on his palate, the fangs digging harmlessly into his bottom lip. He set his jaw with the memories, turning his face aside out of shame for the color of his own cheeks, even if the tetrarch couldn’t see it in the darkness. He was ashamed of himself, and maybe the disgusting piece of shit was him. 

“How’s that kind of shit okay? It’s fucked up. It’s so fucked up. I’m gonna fucking kill him, you know. I’ll kill him one day and it won’t be a surprise to anyone. Yeah, I’ll die for it, whatever. I’ll die for what I believe in, doing some good to the world. To me, that’s really the only respectable way to go, defending your principles to the bitter end. I’ll fucking kill that human still.” 

Xefros nodded absently, upset at himself for not caring more about the current topic than he should have, instead too worried about himself, completely submerged in himself, in his own mind, his own thoughts. Their friend was going through something terrible, a truly awful moment, and here he was, mourning the loss of physical contact with his moirail. It wasn’t okay. It was fucked up. He laid down on his face, eyes closed, breathing into the carpet, his lungs filled with dust. He felt a lump in his throat but not enough self-loathing to actually spill from his eyes. 

“Maybe…” He was speaking into the floor, so he turned his face to the side, toward the tetrarch, into the dark that consumed the both of them. “You’ll do it anyway, I know, but… Be careful.” He’d never be able to keep the tetrarch from going through Hell to defend his beliefs, from protecting the trolls that he fought for, from sacrificing himself for a greater cause. If a full blown fist fight erupted in between the tetrarch and the human in question, he knew that he couldn’t prevent it, and that none of their friends could really stop it, either, but he just hoped that, at least, it’d happen far away from any witnesses and authorities so the tetrarch wouldn’t be punished for it. 

Having the tetrarch get thrown into rehab was one of his greatest fears. No one knew how long the trouble-making trolls stayed there for, how strong the dosage in their veins was going to be, or how much different they’d come out from there. Rehab was a terrifying mystery that only regularly saw one troll that they knew, and that guy wasn’t well enough in the head to have made them trust the place very much. It seemed as if he only came back worse than when he had gotten admitted, almost like an addictive cycle that never really had him be and only actually had him coming back, indefinitely, to the point that he only had a loose grasp of his own reality, his own existence, mindlessly drifting back and forth from that Hellish place. 

It terrified Xefros to think that the tetrarch could fall into the cycle himself. He had dodged a bullet earlier this week already, when Karkat had invited the human to have lunch with them, and the tetrarch had swung at him. To their luck, the punch hadn’t connected, and the human hadn’t reported them to the authorities about it, either, for some reason. Xefros could only think of that reason being the human trying to impress Karkat, meaning that he had to stay on the trolls’ good side in his path for a reward, playing the good guy for that. It had been pure luck, the whole of that encounter, and it had taught them to be smarter about this, because now that the human had gotten his reward, the game would be played differently, and the tetrarch wouldn’t go unpunished for breaking the code anymore. He’d get what was coming to him, and that knowledge chilled Xefros to the bone. 

He touched the tetrarch on the arm, a hand gripping his bicep, feeling the firm muscles through the fabric of his hoodie. They literally hadn’t touched each other since that night, not platonically, not romantically, not at all, and he was the first to break that. He squeezed the tetrarch’s arm, voice quiet but stern. 

“I trust you to be smart about it.” 

“There is no smart way to punch someone’s face in.” 

“Then…” Don’t, he wanted to say. Don’t do it. Be smart, don’t get caught, don’t break the law in the first place. That, however, would’ve been the last thing that the tetrarch would’ve ever listened to, and he didn’t have the right to say it, either. The tetrarch was right in fighting the system, and thinking selflessly, and putting the wellbeing of others before his very own, even if that irked Xefros to no end and had him clawing at his own skin out of built up anxiety, so worried for the tetrarch, literally hyperventilating every time that the tetrarch skirted the line between getting caught or walking free. He sunk nails into the hoodie sleeve. “I trust you.” 

In the dark, he saw the shadow of the tetrarch’s smirk. 

The next morning, as if on cue, his worst nightmare happened: the human approached, in the middle of the open campus, and a fight broke out. He tried holding the tetrarch back with a hand on his arm but that had been about as good as nothing to stop his protective instincts. Xefros couldn’t see much, it was all happening too fast, their friends were trying to pull the two apart while punches flew and blood splattered. Heavy huffing and groaning filled the air, shouting and screaming rang in Xefros’ ears, and he couldn’t concentrate, or think right, or really double-take before his instincts kicked in and had him violently gripping at the tetrarch, anywhere that he could, to pull him back, to tear him away from danger. Four trolls trying to separate two people, all stumbling onto each other, getting elbowed in the throat, pushed down into the dirt, and seeing an exchange of punches turn into a murder attempt. The tetrarch swiped with his claws, got the human on the face once, on the shoulder once, making Xefros’ blood run cold and his vision go black. 

If the tetrarch killed, he would’ve been put down. Harming humans was reprehensible, passive of a rehab visit, but murdering was irredeemable, and trolls that killed didn’t get a second chance. He couldn’t see, suddenly; his heart was beating fast, his hands were sweating, and his entire body trembled. He moved, but felt nothing, saw nothing, only heard the sound of flesh being ripped open and blood spilling down until, magically, it all stopped. He was on the ground, everybody was on the ground, and he could see again. Sollux was the only one standing on both feet, looking down at the lot of them, at the fight that was over. Xefros propped himself up on an elbow, quickly scanning his surroundings for the tetrarch, for the human, both of which lay in opposing ends. The tetrarch moved from above his friends, Karkat immediately dashed for the human, and Xefros watched, with wind caught in his throat, if the human still had any life in him, or if that was the corpse that would put the tetrarch down. He couldn’t breathe; Karkat knelt down next to the human, talking to him, shouting something that Xefros’ ears couldn’t make out, watching the human roll to one side and move to sit up and air filled Xefros’ lungs again; he gasped, choked, the human was alive. The tetrarch would stay alive. 

This was the most terrifying experience of his entire life. 

They all took their time to get up while the human exchanged muffled words with Karkat, stood on his feet before everyone else, and walked out, looking pissed, hopefully to never be seen again. Xefros was so relieved that he could’ve passed out. This had been such a close call,  _ such _ a close call that he almost couldn’t believe it. He got up, alongside all of his friends, and glanced the tetrarch down. He didn’t look too hurt, only a bit roughed up, covered in dirt and copper marks, clothes stretched and wrinkled and hair sticking out everywhere, but alive, and breathing, and here. Xefros filled up his lungs at the sight, allowing himself a moment to calm down, a moment of reassurance of the tetrarch’s safety. It was fine. He turned to look at Karkat next, sobbing helplessly by himself about thirty feet away. Sollux started toward him, but Xefros beat him to it, feeling to have been in his responsibility to do this, since the whole ordeal had passed between the ones closest to the two of them in the first place. He consoled Karkat to the best of his ability and walked with him to the cafeteria. 

“I fucking hate him.” The tetrarch clicked his tongue, shaking his head, brows deeply furrowed and eyes burning alive. After all of this, he was still livid. “If he shows his face again, I swear I’m going to fucking murder him.” 

No. He took the tetrarch’s forearm, wide eyes fixed on his face, lips parted to protest, but, making the tetrarch look down at him, he hesitated. The pair of copper that watched him now had the anger from a second ago entirely overshadowed by a soft consideration that froze him on the spot, and put color to his cheeks. The tetrarch glanced down at his neck so lovingly, so carefully, that he was suddenly embarrassed to be out in the public for this. He lost his train of thought completely. 

“Are you alright?” The tetrarch asked, voice soft, full of concern that made him blush, and his mouth shut, ashamed to say anything. To say the wrong thing. Was he alright?  _ Was _ he alright? Yes, of course. He was better now than ever. In fact, he had only been this alright once before, in the darkness of his own room, pressed against the body that now sat next to him. His grip on the tetrarch’s forearm loosened; he now held it instead. 

“Yes.” 

“You sure?” Sollux’s lisp broke through the rose-tinted moment, causing him to glance across the table at him. “Getting elbowed in the throat must fucking hurt.” 

Oh. His hand absently touched his own neck, over where something sharp cut through it, as if he had swallowed a screw. Right, that. With everything that had just happened, and so quickly, too, his mind had been so wrapped up in worrying for the tetrarch that he had completely forgotten about this. He had barely even registered when it had happened, too. All of a sudden, he had been on the floor, without his brain really connecting the two dots, and he had just gone from there. He felt pretty dumb now. 

“I’m okay. Seriously.” 

A hand rested atop his head; the tetrarch brushed his bangs from his face, running fingers through his hair, deliberately touching him for the first time since… He turned, rust met copper and wind escaped him entirely. His heart beat faster, stronger, making him breathe weird and his cheeks burn. Again, he was struck wordless under the tetrarch’s caring gaze, reveling beneath the warmth of his palm, eyes nearly fluttering shut. This meant something. Loosely aware of that, he leaned into the touch. 

“If he hurts you again, he’s dead.” The tetrarch’s voice was low with conviction, rumbling with seriousness as he stared at Xefros, copper fixed on rust, stern enough to send a shudder down his body. He blushed, glanced briefly at the tetrarch’s lips, then back up at his eyes, suddenly overcome with a rush of warmth that almost paralized him. This… His heart stopped, his cheeks stinged the skin there, and his eyes widened with the realization that this, the tetrarch’s absolute possessiveness over him; the tetrarch’s murderous inclinations to protect him, was really hot. As an immediate response, his eyes dropped down, cutting contact with the tetrarch’s own, and he turned back around to face forward. The hand on his hair remained, though; combed some of it back, following the curve of his skull, down to just below his ear where the tetrarch’s knuckles brushed his jaw, fingertips resting over his Adam’s apple, and thumb burning the nape of his neck. His eyes nearly closed, and he had to consciously keep from letting anything show on his face, anything pointing to the fact that he loved this, and wouldn’t have minded if the tetrarch squeezed, either. 

But he didn’t.

The feeling almost scared him. He had never thought of the tetrarch’s protection as something to transcend a pale form of caring for him, adding a redder response to how safe and important it made him feel, but, he supposed that, after filling a pail, a lot inside of him had changed in regards to their interactions. A lot in his heart had changed, too. Or had it, really? Had it not been there all along, simply buried under thick layers of shame and self-doubt, only to have sprouted out of the soil with their first kiss? He closed his eyes. Maybe the tetrarch really should just choke him into unconsciousness. 

Later that evening, judgement came to them. The tetrarch wouldn’t go unpunished for having drawn blood from a human out in the open, in the light of day, not this time around, probably due to that worthless waste of time having name-dropped the lot of them to the authorities. Either that, or some nosy, rose-skinned witness instead. It didn’t matter. The security guard stopped them from leaving the building and informed the tetrarch of his formal invitation down to rehab, sent by the Nurse herself. How outstanding. Xefros immediately grabbed onto his moirail’s arm to prevent the inevitable from happening, suddenly breathless, suddenly asphyxiating. This was the worst outcome of them all. 

“No.” The word escaped him in a whisper, through a shaky gasp, as his big, wide eyes fixed themselves onto his moirail’s impassive face. The tetrarch, almighty, nonchalant beyond belief, perched atop a throne of self-confidence, didn’t express acknowledgement of Xefros’ desperation and, instead, turned to face the four of them, as a collective, to very calmly address them all, reassure them of his safety and the importance of his actions. It was all worth it, was the underlying message that he passed before looking right into Xefros’ eyes, making his heart skip a beat, and the claws dig deeper into the sleeve of the tetrarch’s hoodie. 

“I’ll be alright.” Voice lower, smaller, in an attempt at keeping this only between the two of them, however futile that ended up being. His coppers were soft, his tone held feeling, and Xefros wanted to kiss him. This type of soft and caring reassurance only made Xefros all the more worried about having his precious moirail get thrown into the basement. He swallowed, choked on it, and felt his eyes water. The tetrarch’s face before him started to become blurry. 

“No.” He whispered again, even smaller now, through the lump in his throat and the pain in his heart. He was crumbling, knees weak and hands shaky, holding onto the tetrarch to keep himself on both feet. 

Wordlessly, the tetrarch grabbed his face and met it with his own, mouths crashing hard together, fingertips digging into his cheeks. He breathed in, finally,  _ finally, _ eyes squeezed shut, rolled to the back of his head.  _ God,  _ he had missed this. He had craved this. He had  _ needed _ this so, so badly. Both of his hands immediately found Dammek’s face, grabbed onto his jaw, his neck, held him into the kiss that pressed sharp fangs into his lips and had his face burning with color. This was everything. He felt so content, so fulfilled, that he almost forgot that this was supposed to be a farewell kiss. He simply held onto it for as long as he could, until the tetrarch broke it, holding him back by the firm hand on his jaw. The fingertips that had sunk into his skin left a pleasant ache behind. The tetrarch took a step back, and tears filled up his vision again. 

“Go on and hold the meeting.” 

The words nearly fell on deaf ears, overshadowed by the excruciating pain that carved his chest right open. 

“Don’t let tonight go to waste.” 

With that, the tetrarch was gone; down the stairs and out of sight. Xefros grabbed at his own chest, unable to breathe, pained to the very core as if stabbed with a butcher knife. He heaved, and the world before him blurred into a mess of shaky colors as tears warmed up his cheeks, dripped down his jaw, over where it ached so nicely that it broke his heart. He sobbed, his knees bent, threatened to give in. 

This was the worst night of his life. 

His friends eventually left the building and guided him down the street to the pub, to hold the meeting. At this point, he had completely forgotten about it with all that had happened all day, the ups and downs that he had been put through in the small period of only a few hours, seeming to have plunged into a deadly pit by the end of it. He followed absently, on slow legs that felt to have weighed a ton and burning eyes that only hurt more with every rub from the heel of his palm. He could barely see; the tears were blinding, but, at the moment, he didn’t care to face a reality where the tetrarch wasn’t there, so he didn’t mind that. He rubbed his undereye raw and wished that the ache in his jaw still stung. 

At the pub, someone managed to sneak alcohol in, and a lot of it, too, which got passed around and drunk faster than Xefros could’ve counted from one to twenty. He didn’t have any. Their table filled up, seats were taken, water bottles brimming with alcohol were smuggled, the meeting officially began, and all that Xefros could do was uselessly look out the window, into the darkness of the street, and feel the weight of his own chest cave itself in. Sollux took the lead for this one, got up from his seat and everything, told them all what had happened earlier with the tetrarch and caused an immediate uprising. Xefros shut his eyes, his head started to pound. The intoxicated trolls around him spoke all very loudly, shouting at each other, making a scene and drawing attention. It was vexing, and had Xefros’ hands in tight fists. The tetrarch would’ve hated this. Tonight was supposed to have been inconspicuous, as much as their fleeting conspirations during lunch and dinner had always been, not flamboyant and extravagant like this. Xefros frowned, turned further toward the window. If he ignored them for long enough, then, maybe, the situation would settle. 

It did, a little, when the owner of the pub told them to quiet down. That put some trolls back into their seats and indoor voices into their throats. It also made Xefros roll his eyes and generally keep to himself. That was, until Karkat decided it was time to very drunkenly bother him, simply offering him alcohol mixed in with juice at first, then turning the conversation around to the tetrarch, and his absence, and how useless Xefros was to rescue him from rehab. He felt like shit. His chest deflated and his eyes grew heavy again. He really couldn’t do a thing to see the tetrarch out of that basement, to reciprocate the constant protection that the tetrarch always offered him. He was the worst moirail of all. 

Talking to Karkat didn’t help in the slightest. The guy hated the tetrarch, that was an undeniable fact, and if Karkat weren’t so terrified of commitment, Xefros would’ve been worried of a possible kismesissitude forming between the two. As it was, however, that only led to Karkat slandering the tetrarch and getting on Xefros’ nerves. He didn’t understand why every little thing seemed to rub him the wrong way tonight, but, if he had to guess, the tetrarch’s absence played a big part on that. He was alone, cold, worried and on edge. Usually, the edge left with the tetrarch’s reassuring sangfroid constantly looming over his head, but, without it, he felt like a wreck, empty and unprotected. This whole thing just felt wrong. That wasn’t to say that he couldn’t live without the tetrarch attached to his hip at all times, but knowing that he laid sedated on a cot right now made Xefros’ blood run cold. He had definitely failed as a moirail this afternoon, having allowed the fight to have broken and the tetrarch to have gotten caught. His chest hurt.

Karkat refused to shut up. He went from criticizing the tetrarch to promptly criticizing their relationship in the span of five seconds and that lit up something so deep inside of Xefros that he had never known it had been within himself this entire time. He barely knew what it was, too, only that it had his blood boiling and his eyes wide. He felt hot, suddenly; stifled in this musty pub, stifled in the collar of his own shirt, hands closed in fists and cheeks warm. Ah, ah, he was offended, that was what it was. He took offense to Karkat trashing his precious relationship with the tetrarch, the best thing in his life, the most valuable aspect of himself, as if the guy even knew the first thing about their shared quadrant. Karkat was very obviously self-projecting due to his failed moirallegiance, and Xefros sincerely understood where he was coming from, but it still stung and hurt his pride. They argued; he defended his relationship while Karkat attacked it, but the quarrel didn’t last long. They couldn’t really go through with it. Karkat soon backed off and apologized, and he did the same. 

The tetrarch’s absence weighed. 

As the passing hours neared curfew, everyone decided that it was time to leave, and walked out of the pub together, singing and laughing, walking in zig-zags and stepping on their own toes. Karkat was very innocently losing his mind over that, while Xefros had a frown on his forehead and both hands deep into his pockets. It was cold, the wind was starting to pick up, but no one really seemed to notice that. Xefros didn’t mind; he tried not paying these idiots too much attention, not while in a mood. In  _ this _ mood. He wordlessly followed them back to the building and went straight for the stairway, not really thinking, but simply drawn to the tetrarch’s physical presence. He didn’t have a plan to get his moirail out of there, or rectify himself for getting him thrown there in the first place, but he needed to see him. That was all that there was to it, seeing him, glancing at his face, making sure that he was alright, not dead, just sleeping. Not chemically dependent, but wiser now, knowing better than to defy the system so very openly and, in any case, allow the human to walk out and name-drop them. If the fight had happened locked away in an empty classroom, they would probably have been fine. 

Karkat, insanely drunk, first tried to prevent him from visiting rehab, then immediately decided to join him instead, and followed as he took the stairs and pushed past the double doors leading to the basement. 

They were greeted with blindingly white surroundings; walls, ceiling and floors that hurt the eyes under such harsh, white lighting. Xefros squinted, slowly making his way down the first hallway, glancing at some of the doors that lined both walls on each side. They were all closed, and seemed to lead to empty rooms and empty cots instead of to his moirail. He didn’t panic, though; it’d take more than that to make him panic, like the Nurse showing up behind the two of them, literally out of nowhere, as if materialized in place, first a disembodied voice, then a tall, looming figure.  _ That _ had him screaming, heart going off and legs literally jumping from the surprise. In a desolate landscape, the Nurse was the lone caretaker of these halls and its patients. At Xefros’ request, she took the two of them to where the tetrarch rested. 

It was disheartening to see the tetrarch passed out on a pristinely white hospital bed, so artificially placed down that he looked like a fresh corpse, or a hyper-realistic plastic doll. His hair had been neatly combed to one side, the bruises on his face seemed a shade paler than before, his eyes were closed and the shades rested atop the nightstand. This entire scene didn’t look or feel natural, and it irked Xefros to see it. He approached the bedside, watching the details of the tetrarch’s face, how immobile he was, the rise and fall of his chest so shallow that it was almost imperceptible, almost absent. It made his heart skip a beat. He took the tetrarch’s hand, felt the warmth of the palm and the coldness of the fingertips. He wasn’t dead. Xefros knew that already, but this confirmation helped him settle the forming doubts. He swiped a thumb across the back of the tetrarch’s hand, feeling the bumps of his knuckles and the scabs that had formed where the skin had split open. The tetrarch had hit hard, and Xefros resonated with that for the first time. 

This human had caused them enough grief and misfortune at this point. The only good outcome of that fight had been the definite end of their interactions with the guy, and the severed connection between him and Karkat or any of them. There was no reason for the human to bother them ever again, or even talk to them at all, unless he strove for another match, in which case Xefros wouldn’t be too against joining in, even if that would ultimately have gotten him thrown down here alongside his friends. It’d have been worth it. He understood the tetrarch’s point of view now, even if it had germinated from a different cause leading to the same effect. It didn’t matter that the tetrarch was opposed to humans because they controlled and oppressed trolls while Xefros didn’t want the threat that they imposed on his moirail’s safety and wellbeing because their goals were the same, and Xefros would kill a man before seeing another human attempt to get the tetrarch offed. 

The Nurse called him back. Filled with hatred and disgust, he let go of the tetrarch’s hand, and complied to her order. 

Outside, back in the first floor, Karkat suddenly beamed; the entire atmosphere around him brightened out of the blue and he enthusiastically spoke of idiotic ideas that would’ve gotten the two of them into big trouble. He looked happy and carefree for once, though, grinning wide and bouncing like a grub on two feet, like Xefros had never seen him before, which was a big change for him and his usually ornery demeanor, though Xefros simply didn’t feel the same. He was in a whole different mindset at the moment, far more somber than Karkat’s very out of character liveliness, so he couldn’t reciprocate. Instead of going along with whatever it was that Karkat wanted to legally get charged for, he expressed his plans of going to bed and achieving a restful night of sleep. Karkat didn’t fight that much; he tossed Xefros the water bottle filled with alcohol and left the building to get caught vandalizing public property. Xefros shook his head and made a mental point to visit him down at rehab in the morning. 

In the darkness of his shared room with Karkat and entirely submerged in tepid slime, he remembered the tetrarch touching his neck earlier today. He didn’t know why that had had such a big impact on him, or why he had briefly wanted him to squeeze, too. He felt really stupid for having wished that back then, but… His heart skipped a beat. How would that have felt, to have the tetrarch’s hand blocking his airway, to have those fingers close around his throat? His pulse quickened. Where had this come from? He had never fantasized about this kind of thing before. Sure, he had thought of the tetrarch in a scenario or two, with or without him, but not like this, not literally strangling him. Did it mean anything? He didn’t actually want to asphyxiate to death, only, well, he just, he liked the authority of it, the tetrarch touching him with assurance, with dominance. Yes, dominance; grabbing him by the neck and pulling him into a hard-hitting kiss like the one from earlier. Ah, that… That, it had been, he had missed it so much. The hand on his face, gripping his jaw so forcefully, almost raw enough to hurt, leaving him wishing that it had. That he had gotten a bruise to see in the mirror, an ache to touch in the dark, and remember, and replay, and relive. He touched his own face where Dammek had grabbed it; his heart swelled with the recalled feeling of lips on his own and wind in his lungs. The tetrarch gave him life and he was eternally grateful for it. 

He had missed this for three days. Why had the tetrarch been so distant? There had been none of that casual closeness that they used to share, not since… Hm. Maybe that  _ had _ changed something between them, only Xefros had been blind to it, and the tetrarch hadn’t brought it up, either, probably too busy stressing over the human and Karkat and their involvement and how that affected the revolution, something like that, surely. He was so selfless, always concerned with the wellbeing of the community, always worried about the greater good while Xefros, wholly self-absorbed, couldn’t think past the two of them and their relationship. Honestly, thinking broader didn’t cater to him at all, and that was really upsetting. He upset himself with his inability to stop thinking about how  _ happy _ the tetrarch made him and how their relationship was the best thing that had ever happened to him, but it was so much easier to focus on what made his heart sing instead of whatever else that didn’t, or whoever else that didn’t. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t care about the revolution and their friends, though; he did, just not in the same proportion. While the tetrarch monopolized about ninety percent of his thoughts, the other ten was left for the revolution and their friends. It wasn’t fair, but he couldn’t help it, not when the tetrarch made life worth living. 

He tossed around, swirled himself into the slime, unable to sleep, too restless to keep his mind from obsessing over the tetrarch. That was what Karkat had said, that he was obsessive, that his affection for the tetrarch was really an obsession. Was that true? He wasn’t sure what made an obsession, or if that really was such a bad thing. In all of the years that they had been together, the tetrarch had never problematized his behavior, so maybe it wasn’t all bad, and Karkat had just been trying to get a rise out of him. Well, it had worked, but not because of this. He rolled into the slime; maybe the tetrarch liked his obsession. Maybe it was good, and showed how much he cared, just like how the tetrarch displayed the same with a hand around his neck, binding them together under his protection, showcasing ownership over him. He shuddered, oh. Ownership. That was… Ah, the tetrarch squeezing his neck, ownership; kissing him hard, ownership; claiming the entirety of his body, possession, property, belonging. He bit his lip, cheeks burning. That was hot. The tetrarch pulling his hair and grabbing him firmly enough to bruise, swallowing his voice and drinking his blood, breathing air into his lungs and pushing fire into his loins. He turned around, hugged himself, wished the tetrarch was here right now, lying above him, pressing against his back. His legs closed. 


	2. Again by my heavenly side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song recs!
> 
> 1\. [Do You Wanna Touch Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSqp-W1pWoU) by Joan Jett  
> 2\. [Rubber Doll](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG4u7FWyJH0) by Miss Fame  
> Chapter song: [Summertime Sadness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdrL3QxjyVw) by Lana Del Rey
> 
> This chapter is NSFW.

The tetrarch bit his neck, fangs piercing through the skin, lips latched around the wound. His hands were on Xefros’ waist, firm, pushing him onto the ground, fingertips digging into his meat, the weight of the tetrarch’s body compressing him down. His eyes were closed, his cheek was on the carpet, and he heaved through his mouth, breathing in small gasps. The tongue on his neck was warm and the hands on his body hurt, sent shivers up his spine, brewed a moan deep inside his throat. The fangs stung, sharp pain shot through his neck, made his hands close in fists and his knees bend, legs rising up. The low of the tetrarch’s firm stomach pressed on his ass, bulge sliding along his nook, causing his thighs to quiver and his hip to arch back. He whined, muffled into his own mouth, the heel of his feet finding the back of the tetrarch’s thick thighs and resting against them. The fangs dislodged from his neck, the tetrarch kissed his jaw. 

“Do you want me?” 

His heart was beating fast and breath came in shallow gasps. 

“Yes.” 

The bulge pushed against the entrance, just short of slipping in. His thighs trembled; he bit his own lip. 

“How much?” The tetrarch spoke with mouth on his jaw, sharp fangs pressed to the skin without breaking it through this time. His breath was warm on Xefros’ face, his hands were painful on his waist. 

“A lot.” He breathed out, heart going faster. “So much.” The bulge rubbed on the entrance and his nails dug into his own palm. “I can’t stop thinking about this.” 

The tetrarch pushed in, bulge curving inside him, stretching him out and filling him up completely, far enough for the tetrarch to bottom out, hips locked against his own. A low moan left his throat, his entire body grew warmer, he shuddered. A thrust, two, pushing deep inside, staggering his body against the carpet, rubbing his face into the ground. He groaned, a hand moved down to latch onto the tetrarch’s thigh, fingertips sinking into the firmness of his muscles. His skin was burning. 

“You thought about me?” The low voice pressed to his jaw had his cheeks pumping louder. 

“Yes, all the time. A lot.” 

The bulge squirmed and rubbed on his walls, stretching them out, reaching in deeper, making his breath come in shorter and his nails dent the tetrarch’s thighs. Genetic material ran along the lips of his nook and pooled underneath himself. The feeling had him shivering. 

“All the time?” The mouth on his skin smirked. “You’re filthy.” A thrust, he groaned. “I love you.” 

His face was scorching, he turned it to the floor, hid it into the carpet. The bulge inside him, moving, twirling, had his thighs trembling and the heels of his feet anchored on the meat of the tetrarch’s thighs. The tetrarch kissed the nape of his neck. 

“You want me to say that you’re mine.” 

He whined, his hips pushed back. 

“Please.” It was a sob, but he wasn’t embarrassed. The carpet swallowed it. 

“You want me to bruise you, like a dog marking territory.” 

Blood dripped from his neck and his face was warm, his heartbeat was frantic. His eyes squeezed when the tetrarch pushed in harder. 

“You’re not an object.” 

“I…” 

“Don’t I show that I care?” 

“No.” 

The bulge found his seed flap and his eyes rolled back, he moaned into the carpet, the hand on the tetrarch’s thigh scrambled to hold onto it, nails scratching the skin. 

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“I fought for you.” 

“You’re dumb.” 

The tetrarch scoffed against the nape of his neck, pressed a grin to it. 

“Ungrateful.” 

“You’re an idiot; I don’t give a fuck about the revolution.” 

“Yeah, you do.” 

“I care about  _ you.” _

“I care about you.” 

“No, you don’t!” 

The weight above him lifted, the hands on his sides flipped him over. The tetrarch stood on both knees and the look on his face was cold, glancing down at him, fixed on his red eyes. Xefros shivered, his thighs spread apart. He wanted this to keep going. The tetrarch took his knees and brought them closer to his body, leaned down, filled him up again. He closed his eyes, felt his cheeks pump hot on his face. 

“You’re mouthy. Do you get off on defying me? Is disobedience exciting?” 

“I’m--”

“You want me to hurt you.” 

He covered both eyes with an arm; the bulge inside him had his toes curling. 

“It’s discipline that gets you off, isn’t it? You want punishment for acting out of line.” 

The hips snapping against his own rubbed his back on the carpet, joggled his body hard enough to shake the meat of his thighs and the softness of his belly. He arched up, biting his own lip, muffling an otherwise loud moan. His nook was about to pulse and his legs threatened to close. This was so much, more than last time. Or, ah, was it? The bulge hit his seed flap something delicious, coloring his face red and filling his lungs with air. He had asphyxiated last time; his mouth had been on Dammek’s, drinking his voice and meeting his tongue and feeling so warm, so warm; in love. He frowned, his knees found the tetrarch’s sides. Last time had been real. 

“You miss it.” 

He swallowed, his cheeks pumped. Dammek had been so sweet, so perfect; soft and loving and kissing his face so tenderly, open-mouthed, thrusting up when he pushed down. His throat closed and his heart hurt. Yes, he fucking missed it. He missed  _ him, _ fuck, he missed him and their closeness and Dammek’s lips on his own and the hands on his thighs and holding hands to the cafeteria and the arm around his neck and, and… The tetrarch slapped his thigh. 

“Wake up.” 

His eyes shot open and all that he saw was dark slime. His heart was beating out of his chest, his body was paralyzed in shock, and the grub scars breathed for him. Moments passed in silence, in the partial darkness, until his shoulders slowly relaxed, and his pulse jabbed at normalcy. He was alone. A twinge shot through him, suddenly, with that realization, and his throat grew a lump right in the middle. Awake, it was as if the tetrarch’s absence pained him twofold. He touched his own waist, no pain. His neck, no wound. Quick flashes of the dream passed before his eyes, sinking heavily into his chest next. Frowning, he moved up to a sitting position. 

His shoulders sagged with grief. 

Five minutes later, he was dressed and walking out of his room. It was still early into the weekend, which meant that the hallway was deserted and the building was quiet, since all of the trolls were sleeping in. Barefoot, he didn’t make a sound; the carpet under his feet absorbed any noise. He walked briskly toward the staircase, one flight down, and just as he was about to turn the corner, his nose was suddenly inches away from a broad chest that, oh, was covered with a symbol that he recognized. His eyes promptly shot up to meet with his favorite face before he hugged the tetrarch, arms quick and tight around the midsection, nose buried in the crook of his neck. His heart leapt with joy, his chest inflated, and a grin hid itself against the tetrarch’s skin. The hug was reciprocated with two arms around him, holding him firmly, widening his grin. His heart doubled up in size; he loved the tetrarch so much, had missed him so dearly. So painfully. The tetrarch pressed a brief kiss to the side of his head that had his cheeks tingling and his entire existence in bliss. He loved him so much. 

“I had such a weird dream last night.” The tetrarch spoke from above his head, holding him still. He wasn’t the only one in that. “I was in a dark room with five or six monitors on the wall across from me, all dark except for one. This one had an old troll on it, looking at me, who apparently knew me, because he knew about the meetings and the revolution. He said that, if I plan on changing the world, then I should at least get educated about my own kind. How uncalled for is that?” 

Their hug was so healing and warm that Xefros didn’t care to break it to look up into the tetrarch’s aviators. He needed this right now, and would hold onto it until the tetrarch decided that it was enough. With eyes closed, he breathed in oranges and peaches and thought of the other night, but only for a quick second. He blamed the dream from ten minutes ago. At his silent acknowledgement, the tetrarch continued. 

“He said we weren’t devised by the humans, but that we came from outer space.” The tetrarch scoffed. “I guess that’s the kind of dream you have when you’re high on Diazepam or whatever.” 

Their arms naturally unlaced, and the hug dissolved. The tetrarch continued up the stairs, so Xefros followed at his side, walking extremely close to him, probably seeming a little strange with that, but the warmth of the tetrarch’s body drew him in and had him wanting to hold hands up to the third floor. He didn’t, though, no matter how much his brain screamed for him to do it, to just reach over and take the tetrarch’s hand, but he was more afraid to initiate anything passive of a scolding from the troll who he loved most than he cared to satisfy his own touch starvation. All that he managed to do was walk close enough to the tetrarch so that their arms brushed and the back of their hands  _ almost _ touched. It wasn’t nearly good enough, but he’d have to deal with it. 

“How did the meeting go?” The tetrarch asked, tone conversational, curious. 

Xefros’ blood ran cold with it because, well, it had been a mess. Just a big, disgusting, shameful mess that he hadn’t helped clean up in the slightest. In fact, he had never been more useless in his entire life, not even had paid attention to anything that had been talked about or raised his voice to attempt an organization of everyone’s enthusiasm under concealment. He had done nothing but brood, allow vexation to course his veins, argue with Karkat, apologize to Karkat, and ultimately amount to nothing at all. Had the tetrarch seen any of it, he would’ve been deeply disappointed by Xefros’ behavior. 

“Uh, ah, it was, it went… The, um, Sollux took the lead and, well--”

“What was discussed?” 

“Ah… Revolutionary measures.” 

“Such as?”

His cheeks colored. 

“Just, a variety of concepts in general and the certainty of everyone’s intentions funneled to a single cause. The like.” 

He had no idea what he had just said and what any of that meant, if it happened to mean anything at all; he had just tried to mimic the kind of stuff that the tetrarch was always going on about and the words that he used. None of it made any sense, but the tetrarch still took that into consideration and nodded in pensiveness. 

“I guess a more general approach to our goals makes a good topic for a very first encounter.” 

He nodded, saying nothing else to follow that up with. Telling the tetrarch about the alcohol and the absolute mess that it had caused would’ve been counterproductive, so he just swore to his silence and continued to follow him. 

Inside room 303, the tetrarch pulled his wardrobe open and started rummaging through the drawers. Xefros watched from the doorway, only a step or two into the room, but not really close enough to approach him, because it didn’t seem like they’d stay here for too long. He simply watched the tetrarch pull his hoodie off, throw it to the bottom of the wardrobe, and proceed to retrieve a few black items from the drawers, one of them looking to have been a shirt, or maybe a pair of boxers. He wasn’t sure; all of the tetrarch’s belongings were always a mess, tossed carelessly around in haphazard piles that grew to consume the rest of the wardrobe until Xefros decided that it was time to iron and fold everything. He hadn’t done that in a while, though, evidently. With some clothes hanging over an arm, the tetrarch turned to him. 

“Shower with me?” 

His brows immediately shot up his forehead, eyes wide, lungs defective. What the fuck? Yes. Instantly, yes, right now, absolutely. This question had never been uttered by either one of them, and it was weird to hear it, especially after a whooping  _ three _ days without as much as an arm across his shoulders or a hand in his own, and, now, suddenly, this. Sure, yeah, okay. What the fuck, yeah.

“Okay.” 

He was fine with this, not overreacting to it at all, not ardently looking forward to the next twenty minutes in the slightest, something that he had painfully wished for for literal three days now. This was fine, he was cool. The tetrarch tossed him some clothes and turned back around to pull more out of the pits of some drawers and, okay, he’d get to wear the tetrarch’s clothes, that was neat. That was alright. He wasn’t literally in love with this idea at all, didn’t even want to hug these clothes to his chest or bring them up to his nose to be deliciously enveloped in peaches and oranges. He was fine. The tetrarch pushed the wardrobe doors closed and walked with him out into the hallway. 

For all that he knew, they might just have been headed to a nice, inconspicuous and completely innocent shower in an empty bathroom before everyone woke up to start their weekend. Maybe they weren’t even going to makeout at all and this was simply a new thing that moirails did now, no big deal. No big deal! He really wanted the tetrarch’s mouth on his own. No big deal, though. Honest. He just very ardently wished for  _ any _ sort of contact. It was cool; all was under control. 

“We came from outer space.” The tetrarch muttered under his breath, shaking his head as they entered the locker room. He dropped his clean clothes on a bench and swung his locker open, rummaged through it, fetched some bottles from the back of it. The innards of the locker were such a mess that Xefros tried not looking directly at it, instead placed the clothes cluttering his arms down and removed his own shirt. Might as well get started. 

“The biggest problem that I have with this dream is how real it felt. Like, I still remember the needle poking my arm.” 

“What needle?” 

The tetrarch hadn’t mentioned a needle before. He dumped the bottles and sponges down on the bench before moving to take his shirt off, as well. Xefros immediately ogled the naked chest before his very eyes, the size of the tetrarch’s biceps and his round pectorals, smooth skin, flat, hard, firm stomach. He briefly remembered three nights ago, his own body all pressed up against the tetrarch, his upper arm under the grip of the tetrarch’s hand, keeping him upright, holding him up close as their hips met and their mouths were sealed as one. His heart went off, and he turned around to keep his gaze from betrayal, his imagination from running loose. This was difficult. 

“After the troll was done roasting me, the Nurse came in and put me to sleep again. That’s how the dream ended.” 

He breathed in, once, deeply, deeper, and collected his thoughts. They were talking about the tetrarch’s dream. 

“After that, you woke up in rehab?” 

“Yeah.” 

The tetrarch walked past him with shampoo, soap, and everything else jumbled up in both arms. Xefros removed the rest of his clothes before following, trying not to stare, trying very arduously not to stare. 

“I went there, you know.” He had to say something, anything, to peel his attention away from the gray of the tetrarch’s body. His voice echoed through the empty shower room, reverberating embarrassingly loudly against the tiles and back to the two of them. That made him self-conscious enough to drop his tone a couple of decibels lower than usual, which was already pretty low. 

The tetrarch turned to him with a brow raised. 

“You went down to the basement?” 

Strangely enough, the tetrarch’s voice didn’t echo. He really was something else.

“Yeah, I did.” 

“Why?” 

His face quickly colored. They both paused in front of adjacent showerheads and twisted some knobs, careful to not get hit with the first batch of cold water that rained from above. 

“Well.” The falling water cascading onto the tiles underneath their feet made enough noise to cover up the uncharacteristic loudness of his voice, which made him feel a little less awkward. “I just went there to check on you.” 

In response to that, a small smirk tugged on the corners of the tetrarch’s lips, making Xefros’ heart leap and his entire soul crave those fangs on his mouth. He watched the tetrarch place the shower kit down and step under the stream, with eyes closed, feeling the warm water on his face, trailing down his neck, covering his chest. He ran a hand through his hair, brushed it back from his forehead, and opened his eyes. Xefros quickly looked away before he got noticed staring, and started his own shower. He made the water cold and got under it, face to the side, having his entire body shudder. Shit, he might’ve exaggerated with the coldness, but it was fine. The accumulated warmth on his cheeks counterbalanced it. He rubbed at his eyes before reaching for the soap. 

Their shower ended up being a lot less steamy than he had imagined it would’ve been. The tetrarch didn’t seem too inclined to close the distance between them, and Xefros didn’t risk anything, either, which resulted in a very innocent scenario for fifteen or so minutes. That didn’t really upset him as much as it simply disappointed his grandiose expectations, debunking them all. The emptiness at the bottom of his chest was commonplace by now and not very surprising. If anything, it was just a little bit annoying.

“Hey, do you see this?” The tetrarch’s tone was perplexed, almost breathless. It made Xefros turn right around to face him, see him looking down at his own arm, eyes fixed on the inside of his elbow. Xefros frowned a bit, leaning closer. The tetrarch made it easier for him by reaching his arm over, where two small marks painted the skin a dark copper just over his veins. 

“Two needle pokings?” He asked, glancing back up to meet with the tetrarch’s eyes. They were blown wide under a serious scowl. 

“Fuck.” The tetrarch breathed out, cutting the water off. “Was the dream real?” 

His brows lifted. Oh. 

The tetrarch left the showers pronto, which had him hurriedly doing the same, mindful of turning off his own faucet before following right behind, carrying their belongings in both arms. He dropped it all on a bench and, while toweling himself dry, couldn’t help but glance over at the tetrarch every other second, split between making sure that he hadn’t run off yet and drinking up every inch of gray skin that he could for posterity purposes. They hadn’t undressed in front of each other in a while now and he honestly didn’t want to forget the body that seized his breathing. Everytime, wow, everytime. He put some clothes on, the taurcer symbol displayed across his chest on a shirt that was only one or two sizes too big for him, and towed after the tetrarch on a hurried journey to the basement. He didn’t notice, but one of his palms remained pressed to the design over his heart during the whole walk there. 

The white hallway that welcomed them was as empty as the first time, resounding their footfalls for what seemed to have been yards worth of walled off emptiness. The tetrarch’s hurried jog slowed down to a walk, which then slowed to a stop. He glanced about, seemingly in searching, almost perplexed. Was Karkat down here, too? The tetrarch was obviously looking for the Nurse, but Xefros just remembered the night before, how Karkat had simply ran off into the darkness, drunk and carefree, so he must’ve been down here, as well. He surely hadn’t been in his recuperacoon this morning. 

“Nurse?” The tetrarch called; his stern tone dozens of times amplified in this hallway, echoing through Xefros’ chest. It felt awfully nice in his rib cage. 

“Do you think Karkat’s down here?” He whispered to the tetrarch, a step closer to his side in order to avoid his own voice from drifting off and expanding too much. The tetrarch passed him a brief glance in response, brows furrowed. 

“Why would he be?” 

“Because he ran off last night.” 

“He isn’t.” A soft and omnipresent voice reached them from all around, startling the both of them, and successfully shutting them up in an instant. It shouldn’t have been surprising at this point, though; they both knew it was only the Nurse. Still, the tetrarch took Xefros’ arm in a firm grip and kept him close, either out of instinct or pure habit. 

“You know what happened here.” The tetrarch started, confident and loud. The fingers on Xefros’ arm sunk into his sleeve. “You took me somewhere.” 

The Nurse raised a perfectly plucked brow in response to that. 

“Did I? I’m afraid I don’t--”

_ “Yes,  _ you did. Don’t try to play me off, I know that that bunker or whatever is a real place. Where is it? Who’s that troll on the monitor?” 

The Nurse bounced her brows once, lips pursed. 

“I’m not sure you’re entirely sober at the moment. Would you like to lay down for a bit? Maybe pick up a light reading on the meanwhile?” As she spoke, the Nurse reached into the folds of her robe and removed a book from it, holding it up for the two of them to regard the cover. The title was some human-accepting, human-loving bullshit that instantly made Xefros exhausted. The hand on his arm gripped it tighter. 

“No! Stop dodging my questions.  _ Where _ is that bunker?” 

The piercing greens that watched them suddenly fixed themselves on Xefros, making his heart jump out of his skin as the Nurse took a couple of steps in his direction, entirely ignoring the tetrarch’s recurring inquisition. She reached an arm to him, offering the book. A hesitant hand took it. 

“Take care of him.” She spoke with an ominous aura about her that chilled Xefros’ blood and pissed the tetrarch off. 

“Nurse--”

“He’ll enjoy the reading.” The Nurse cut the tetrarch off, addressing Xefros directly before turning and rapidly vanishing into the closest door to her side. 

The tetrarch immediately let go of Xefros and stepped after her, but the door shut right in his face, preventing him from following. He tried pushing it open, since it had no handle, but that quickly proved itself fruitless; he had been locked out. With both hands in tight fists, the tetrarch huffed out his frustration, deciding against hitting anything, and, instead, turning on his heel to storm for the exit. Xefros followed him close behind, carrying the book in a hand and feeling a pleasant tingle in his upper arm. 


	3. Seed in soil, chaos brewing

“She couldn’t have drugged me twice for no reason, that doesn’t make any sense.” The tetrarch muttered, mostly to himself, while pacing his own room with brows tightly knit and arms crossed. “She’s deliberately keeping information from me, which means that this is bigger than it seems, this is more than a troll on a monitor, but is that good? Whose side are they on, considering that the monitor troll is a real person and not just some recording? They’re probably government agents, I mean, she literally drugs unyielding trolls for a living; that’s the opposite of a revolutionist. Was I not supposed to remember that encounter, if she was being all evasive with the questions? What purpose did it serve, anyway, to tell me that we’re from outer space?  _ Are _ we from outer space? Wait. They know about the meetings.” The tetrarch paused, paralyzed in shock. “Fuck.” 

As the tetrarch went on with his soliloquy undisturbed, sorting out his ideas in the open, Xefros disinterestedly perused the book in his hands, expecting it to be just an extension of everything that he heard every single afternoon from Monday to Friday and hating it already.

“If they know about the meetings, then why did they tell me that we’re from outer space? To deviate me from the truth, to distract everyone? That’s so unnecessary; there are far better ways of doing that without involving such an intricate plan. Who’s the monitor troll, anyway, and why didn’t he try to stop me from holding the meetings? It seems like he just wanted me to pass on the whole outer space idea. What the fuck…” 

Outer space? Xefros felt as if he had just seen something about that. He turned a few pages back, reading a little more thoroughly now, during the search, until he found it: an entire chapter about spacebound trolls. He shivered. Quickly skimming the page, his entire body chilled; this had nothing to do with humans in the slightest, but focused on telling a seemingly historical string of facts about trollkind and its origins. Was this real? He turned the book toward the tetrarch and offered it to him. 

“Here, read this.” 

His voice pulled the tetrarch out of his own thoughts and made him turn around, aiming a look at the book thrusted toward him. He took it anyway, though, and as he read, his eyes widened; Xefros could see that very clearly from this angle. After a moment of silent inspection, the tetrarch glanced up at him. 

“This is…” 

“Yeah.” 

The tetrarch leaned back onto the wall, running a hand through his perfect hair, brushing his bangs back. He looked absolutely lost, but somewhat awed at the same time. 

“Holy shit…” A pause, a breath, no thoughts. “We’re from outer space?” The tetrarch’s tone was more confused than convinced. 

Xefros didn’t have what to say to that, and simply shrugged in response. Speechless, they both stood in petrified silence, staring dumbly at one another, until a new rush of unanswered questions reached the tetrarch’s brain. 

“How do I know I can trust the content of this book if they gave it to me? I don’t even know where they stand yet, in the face of the revolution. How do I know that this isn’t fake?”

“I don’t know.” 

“I can’t trust this.”

“What are you going to do with it, then? If you’re not reading it, I guess. I mean, that’s a smart move, I just, well, should we take it back?” 

The tetrarch considered his question in silence, aviators angled down at the cover of the book, hands tilting it as he regarded the title. With a thumb at a random page, he pulled the book open and mindlessly perused it. 

“That’d be the prudent way of going about… This…” He paused, aviators pointed down at a figure on a page. “Holy shit, this is him. This is the monitor troll.” The tetrarch tapped a finger on the image before flipping it upside-down for Xefros to see. “This is the guy from my not-dream.  _ This _ is him, I’m sure of it. Did he write this?” 

The troll looked very old in the picture, wearing a pair of rectangular sunglasses over his eyes and straight, long hair framing his angular face. 

“Maybe? Seems a little suspicious, though, that they’d give you a book written by one of them.” 

“No, it makes perfect sense. That’s how you indoctrinate people, Xefros; make them believe that you’re some sort of higher being, that you know far more than you really do, than  _ they _ do, and feed them whatever ideology you want that will grant you privileges and advantages in the grand scheme of things. It’s genius, but I’m not falling for it. I know this trick too well.” The tetrarch spoke while turning the book in his hands, then discarding it with disinterest to the side, atop his dresser. “If they intend to brainwash me, they’re going to have to try harder than this. I mean, I bet I can read this whole thing and break it down to its ersatz roots. Watch me; I’m going to debunk them in a second.” 

The tetrarch took the book back and opened it again, this time on the first pages. He flipped through some of the very first ones in order to get to the first chapter, then fell completely still, surely reading it, his fine brows slightly furrowing with his focus. Xefros stood in place for a minute, waiting for the tetrarch’s judgement, anticipating the devastating arguments that the tetrarch had in store for this particularly silly book, but that didn’t happen right away. He stood around waiting in silence for a good handful of minutes, which slowly killed his expectations and, instead, had him potentially wondering just how thick the contents of the book really were if it was taking the tetrarch a while to gave his say. Xefros shifted his weight on both feet, waiting some more before deciding to take a seat on the ground, next to the wall. He rested his back on it and pulled out his phone, ready whenever the tetrarch would be. 

Karkat wasn’t back yet, and the Nurse had said that he wasn’t down in the basement, either, so where was he? Still on the streets? Impossible; the police would’ve caught him overnight for sure. He must’ve found shelter, then. Oh. Of course; he slept over at the human’s house. Goddammit, what a traitor, after everything that the tetrarch had done for him, after the entire fight and the definite cut of ties with the human. Xefros shook his head, both vexed and disappointed at Karkat’s inability to reject unwanted advances. But were they really unwanted, though? Karkat always seemed so desperate to fill a single quadrant that, Xefros supposed, even a human would do. Unbelievable, but also kind of sad. He wasn’t sure about that, though; still too annoyed to make much of his other emotions out. He wished Karkat would just let the human go for once and for all and settle for a troll like everyone else. He didn’t  _ need _ a moirail, just someone, anyone, any quadrant. He could’ve taken Aradia as his matesprit or auspisticized between Sollux and Eridan, although, maybe Aradia herself was already doing that, or he could just take Eridan as a moirail or a matesprite or whatever, honestly; the choices were plenty and he literally didn’t have to choose a human at all. What a fucking… Did he even choose, or did he get chosen? Huh. Xefros hadn’t stopped to think about that. 

Maybe Karkat did get chosen. The way that he had acted yesterday during the fight, so reluctant to see the human alone, so willing to have the tetrarch defend him when everybody knew that they both despised each other. Had that been a simple rejection of the human’s passes, or maybe something else? Karkat had never sided with the tetrarch on anything except for that one time, so what did it mean? That couldn’t have been a pass at the tetrarch, no, of course not. Of course not, that was ridiculous, it would’ve been… No. It hadn’t been that. Surely, it had been something else, just a rebuff in response to the human’s interest in pursuing whatever twisted relationship they had, or didn’t have. Surely that. Yes, surely, surely. Xefros shook his head. 

Resuming, Karkat wasn’t back yet, and that was the big problem here. He pulled up Karkat’s contact and messaged him. 

_ hey. sorry for being weird yesterday i just didnt feel very well but you know that already im sure. anyway where are you? were a little worried because the nurse said youre not in rehab so i dont know. are you ok? please get back to me.  _

He put his phone down. Karkat wasn’t interested in the tetrarch, he wasn’t, he couldn’t have been, that was ludicrous to even be considering right now, he was an absolute idiot for even…

“Tetrarch?” 

He hadn’t noticed when his heart had started hammering through his chest. The aviators moved up from the book to square themselves on his face, preemptively making him feel stupid for the question that was about to spew out of his lips anyway, but that if he didn’t ask, would’ve driven him to actual madness. 

“Do you think Karkat… Do you think he’s interested in anyone?” 

He was a coward that couldn’t go through with his actual question so a rephrasing would have to do. It wasn’t that big of a stretch, anyway, and the general message had been successfully conveyed. The tetrarch’s brows furrowed.

“He seems pretty fucking interested in that human, if you ask me, but that won’t be a problem anymore.” The tetrarch shook his head in frustration, then immediately grew still, and somber, as if a chilling thought had just occurred to him. “Did you say he ran off last night?” 

He swallowed. 

“Yeah, I thought he’d be back by now, you know, because of the police, but, uh, the Nurse said that he isn’t down there, so, ah, I don’t know.” 

The tetrarch ran a hand through his hair and the crease in between his brows deepened with his vexation. 

“Shit. He’s with the human, isn’t he? That son of a bitch; do you know where he lives?” 

“I don’t.” 

The tetrarch snapped the book closed, turned and paced around the room for a second, as his brain whirred and decided on what to do next. Xefros was at a complete loss. 

“Is it seven yet?” 

He glanced down at his phone screen. 

“In five minutes it will be.” 

The tetrarch covered his mouth with a hand, stood in place deeply engrossed in thought for about half a second, then left the room entirely, absently clutching the book under his arm, bringing it along for the ride. Xefros got up from the floor and followed, feeling strange, almost as if something were rotting the walls of his stomach through. He towed behind the tetrarch down the hallway and one floor up, over to Sollux’s room. The tetrarch knocked on the door with a heavy hand, impatient for their friend to answer, even though it was far too early into the weekend for anyone to be up yet. The canteen hadn’t even opened at this hour. At least, for the little while that took Sollux to answer the door, the tetrarch didn’t shout or made much of a ruckus, as not to wake the others. 

Sollux pulled the door open with sleep in his eyes and slime in his hair. 

“Oh. You’re back.” 

“You didn’t hear from Karkat last night, did you?” 

Sollux blinked.

“Last time I saw him he was in the lobby with everybody else, like, after the meeting, when everyone was going to bed. I just took the elevator.” 

“Did he text you? Where’s your phone?” The tetrarch spoke while walking past Sollux and seeing himself to the depths of the room, uninvited and uncaring of that. Sollux didn’t seem to have minded his behavior, either, taking this sort of violation of privacy in unshaken stride. The tetrarch didn’t believe in private property, which they all knew firsthand by now.

“I don’t know, I fell asleep.” Sollux informed them, shrugging loosely and fishing the phone out of the pockets of his pants. He, at the moment, wore nothing but a pair of week-old jeans, very obviously having jumped out of his recuperacoon just to answer the door. Xefros almost felt bad for having disturbed his friend’s sleep.

The tetrarch quickly swiped the phone from Sollux’s hand and went through it with furrowed brows and cutting seriousness. Xefros took a timid step into the room, since everyone was in it, but didn’t feel right to push in much more than that. He settled for watching the two from the door frame. 

“Man, if he didn’t text you, I don’t know.” 

The tetrarch handed Sollux’s phone back before taking out his own, fiddling with it, and clicking his tongue. 

“Did he text you?” The question was addressed to him, as evidenced by the aviators fixing themselves on his face along with the following words. He shook his head negatively. 

“Then Aradia’s our only hope.” 

“I don’t think he contacted anyone.” Xefros jumped in, his heart jumping with it. In response, the other two stared blankly at him, unknowingly urging him to continue. “Three out of four, I don’t think he wants to talk to us right now.” 

“Let’s just go to Aradia to be sure.” 

“Wait, so you guys don’t know where he is?” 

“No.” 

The tetrarch walked out of the door and had the other two follow. They took the stairs down two quick flights and knocked on Aradia’s door, ready to wait another five to ten minutes before she answered, if Sollux’s wake up time could count as a parameter. 

“He spent the night out?” Sollux asked, very obviously still half-asleep and as confused as a newborn grub. 

“Yeah.” 

“Then try calling Dave.” 

“Do you have his number?” 

Sollux shook his head. In the next second, Aradia answered the door, all dressed and seeming far better awake than all three of them combined, however much the dead unenthusiasm on her face attempted to disregard it. That was just how she always looked like, though.

“Aradia, have you heard from Karkat at all?” 

She passed their anxious faces a blank glance. 

“No, but if he’s not around, then he’s definitely with Dave.” 

“We know.” The tetrarch spit out, running a distressed hand through his hair and ruining the comb entirely. “Does anyone know where this guy lives?” 

They all shook their heads at each other. If they knew, would the tetrarch actually show up there to rescue Karkat from the man that he liked? That would’ve been ridiculous, but not something that Xefros put past the tetrarch at all. He clearly looked very upset by this and would obviously have done anything to fetch Karkat back to safety. The thought pierced Xefros through with a feeling that he didn’t recognize, but that he didn’t really like, either. It stuffed a lump in his throat. 

The tetrarch huffed. 

“Whatever; there’s nothing we can fucking do, I guess. If he texts anyone, ask for the address.” 

With that, the tetrarch left. Both Aradia and Sollux passed each other a glance and stayed behind while Xefros meekly followed, still feeling strange and wishing to at least know what that meant, where it had come from, what it alluded to. He had a vague idea, but didn’t like it and would rather not actively consider it. He followed the tetrarch one floor up to 303.

The entirety of Saturday was spent lying on the tetrarch’s floor, fiddling with his phone in silence while the tetrarch read and eating at the canteen to the discussions of Karkat’s safety being passed back and forth between his friends. He was as worried for the guy as the rest of them, but the topic grew stale very quickly for him and had him pretty exhausted of hearing about it. It seemed as if that was the only thing that the tetrarch could talk about all day, and, since he couldn’t do a thing to change any of it, his best bet was to take his mind off of it by reading the Nurse’s book for most of the afternoon, which really gnawed at Xefros for whatever reason. For  _ no _ reason. He supposed it was just upsetting to see the tetrarch feel so frustrated and angry all because of Karkat; very emotionally affected by Karkat, wholly consumed in thoughts of Karkat, speaking of nothing but Karkat… Xefros hated how his jaw set every time the tetrarch said that name. 

This had never happened before. 

“That human is a malevolent entity that’s using his natural entitlement to coerce Karkat into further pursuing their relationship, which is why Karkat felt under obligation to run off and apologize to Dave after the fight. Otherwise, they would’ve cut ties by now.” The tetrarch exposed his point of view during dinner in between bites of a pale and crusty grub loaf that must’ve come out of a can and straight into his plate. Xefros felt queasy, but probably not because of the food.

“He must have a bomb ass mind game then because KK is convinced that he likes him for real.” 

“He told you that?”

“Yeah, kind of. I mean, whenever I ask about what they have, KK is very quick to protect him, so I don’t know. That might just be the result of emotional manipulation, yeah, but I can’t see Dave doing something like that. He seemed cool when we met him.” 

“Cool? Playing the nice guy to get everyone on your side is the first step to manipulation, Sollux. With a crowd wrapped around your finger, you can do anything. You’re invincible and always right. Did you see how pissed he got when I stood up for Karkat? Offended that Karkat denied his request, as if he owned him or something. As if going against him was a personal offense. It’s ridiculous, it’s disgusting. We  _ need _ to get Karkat away from him.” 

Xefros got up from his seat, leaning a hand on the table for balance. His friends were all staring at him now, he saw them in his peripheral vision, but didn’t really mind it. He was this close to emptying his stomach all over the canteen floor, and kept most of his focus on trying to actively avoid that. 

“Um, I’m going to bed. Sorry.” He announced weakly, putting a rude end to the conversation without meaning to. He really needed to leave. 

Next to him, the tetrarch got up. 

“Hey, are you alright?” The tetrarch spoke with furrowed brows, obviously scrutinizing him behind the aviators, so he kept his eyes cast down to prevent that.

“No, not really.” 

The tetrarch placed a hand under his chin and lifted his head up to look into his face. The touch had him wanting to lean into it, not doing so, and, instead, feeling pathetic for wanting that in the first place, for enjoying the tetrarch’s attention so much. His cheeks colored with embarrassment. 

“What happened?” 

The tetrarch’s tone was so caring and sweet that it physically hurt to hear. He was wholly undeserving of it. 

“Nothing, I just don’t feel very well. I’m tired.” 

At least, he wasn’t lying. The tetrarch didn’t seem to fully believe him, though, but considered that to be enough information to stop questioning him, and make the decision to accompany him upstairs. They both bid their friends a good night and walked side-by-side out of the canteen, into the main entrance hall. It was dumb how a single second of the tetrarch’s time had been enough attention to make him feel much better already, and simply walking with him put a skip to his heartbeat. Again, he was totally pathetic, but nothing could be changed; all he could do was enjoy the company up to his room and, well, into his room, too. The tetrarch closed the door behind himself as they entered. 

“Will you be alright?” 

He nodded his reply, kicking his shoes off and placing them into the wardrobe. His side of the room was spotless and perfectly organized while Karkat’s half was a disheveled mess. The tetrarch naturally gravitated toward the disorder, regarding it at his leisure while crossing the room with the posture of someone who belonged in it. Xefros would never argue that; all that was his also belonged to the tetrarch and vice-versa, be it item, space or body. Private property was a myth. As if to prove that, the tetrarch reached into Karkat’s side of the wardrobe and pulled a red shirt out of it. 

“Really?” The tetrarch scoffed, smoothing out the fabric to glance at the symbol on the front. “I didn’t think he’d keep it.” 

“What, Dave’s shirt?” 

“Yeah. I just hope this appropriation was an act of rebellion and not a material withholding of sentimental value.” The tetrarch spoke while tossing the shirt back into the closet, forceful enough to show both his disgust as well as his disapproval of it. Xefros touched the taurcer sign across his chest before pulling his shirt off. 

“I think he likes him.” He said quietly, staring down at the shirt in his hands. 

“I hope you’re wrong.” 

He reached an arm across the two of them, handing the shirt back to the tetrarch. His moirail took it and stepped closer to him, pressed a palm to his forehead, tilted his head back the tiniest bit so he was glancing up into the pair of shades that watched him. His heart leaped, his lips parted; suddenly, all of the upsetting feelings from a minute ago vanished and he was whole again. Fingers brushed through his hair, combing it back from his face and out of his eyes so tenderly, so fondly that his heart could’ve burst out of his chest. With a single action, the tetrarch had completely cured him. 

“Get well soon, yeah?” 

He nodded, speechless. The tetrarch leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead that had a heartfelt smile forming on his lips, cutting his face in half. He felt warm inside; he loved the tetrarch so much, loved the smile that he received in response to his own, loved the hand on his hair and the voice that addressed him. He thrived. The tetrarch removed the hand from his hair and touched the side of his face, down his cheek to his jaw, before stepping back toward the door. His heart swelled. 

“Call if you need me.” 

He nodded again, watching the tetrarch cross the room and see himself out. 

“Thank you.” He called after him, before the door closed. The tetrarch held it open for a second longer to smile back to him. 

“Goodnight.” 


	4. Big mistake, big mistake, big mistake, big mistake

“What time is it? What time is it? He’s been missing for thirty-eight hours.”

“He’s not _missing,_ MM, he’s at Dave’s house. We’ve known this since the beginning.”

“We literally haven’t heard a single word from him in the last thirty-eight hours. He could be fucking dead right now, Sollux. Sorry for giving a shit.”

“You’re overreacting; he’s fine. He probably just doesn’t want us bothering his honeymoon.”

“Honeymoon? His psyche is being held hostage by a master puppeteer in this very second and you’re acting like that’s totally normal.”

Xefros propped both of his elbows onto the table and covered his face in his hands, feeling a ruthless headache pound his soul into the next astral plane. He had already taken something for it this morning, which hadn’t very well worked, and taking more wasn’t advised, so he’d just have to tough it out and live through it. He rubbed at his temples, shuddering; this was the worst. He couldn’t believe that they were _still_ talking about his friend, and that Karkat hadn’t thought to text them a single word saying that he was fine, or even simply alive. Instead, all that they got this entire time was radio silence and a lot of worrying, mostly done by the tetrarch and followed up by Sollux, creating an endless cycle of suppositions and pointless banter that never got anywhere and only accomplished a worse headache than the one from a minute ago. Xefros squeezed his eyes shut; he couldn’t stand this. He wanted to fucking cry.

“It’s not the weirdest thing in the world, is all I’m saying.”

“How are you so sure that Dave is a bad person, anyway? He’s never done anything to prove that.” Aradia jumped in, curving the conversation topic to something equally unpleasant that didn’t help Xefros’ headache in the slightest.

“He’s never proven that he isn’t, either, or even gone out of his way to do so, which tells me that he’s not very worried about whether or not we think he’s a disgusting, ill-intentioned creature. I’m simply judging his personality from what we’ve seen of him so far, given that the first time he spoke to us was directed straight at Karkat to get him to work for him in class. He’s been exclusively concerned about nothing but himself since the very beginning; why do you guys think he’s benevolent at all?”

“I don’t think he is, I just don’t know him enough to really make a call. I don’t think anyone of us do, so we can’t say whether he’s good or evil for sure.”

“I’m not carving anything in stone here, Aradia; I’m just making suppositions.”

Xefros pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked the screen, hoping to envelop himself into something that didn’t feel exactly like blowing the roof of his head open with a shotgun. He tapped on Karkat’s contact and opened the messenger app to text him, all of his unseen messages from the day before covering the screen at this point. In these last thirty or so hours that the tetrarch had mentioned, he had texted Karkat quite a bit, hoping to either get his attention or just teleport himself into a different dimension where his surroundings didn’t consist of the current topics put to discussion. Truthfully, he had grown very tired of those within the first five minutes of their existence and couldn’t wait to experience afterlife.

_karkat please come back. just come back please. please i need you back. please. im so tired._

He didn’t send that. He erased all of it and started over.

_is dave really a good person? should we trust him?_

Erased again.

_im really angry at you did you know that? youre such a fucking. asshole. why did you have to run away? is this my fault? this is my fault. i shouldve stopped you. i saw you leaving but i didnt care and im so sorry. karkat im sorry. i didnt mean that._

Erased.

_is he hurting you?_

Erased.

_hey its me again. sorry for flooding your inboX i just really want to hear from you. please teX me back when you see this. X:)_

Sent.

He put his phone down and leaned onto the tetrarch, shoulder on shoulder. This splitting headache was the worst that he had ever had and it really made him want to cry again. Last time, just this morning, had only made things worse, but it hurt so much right now that he didn’t believe it could get any worse than this, so crying again wouldn’t make a difference. He had peaked into migraine status and there was no escalating from here. The tetrarch put an arm across his back and pulled him closer, had him instinctively burying his face on the neck before himself. The conversation floating above his head continued, but, in a blissful moment, he didn’t pay attention to it, too wrapped up in the contemplation of his own torment to really take in the world that surrounded him. He breathed in peaches, he breathed in oranges, and pressed his lips to the neck that he adored. For a single second suspended in air, it seemed as if his headache had subsided, and he breathed out.

“Are you not feeling any better?”

The tetrarch’s smooth voice felt like a piece of velvet cloth brushing across his forehead, his temple, probably where the tetrarch’s mouth was, pressing into his hair. His eyes, already closed, rolled back.

“No.” He muttered onto the tetrarch’s skin, muffled by it. The arm around him was warm.

“What can I do for you?”

The whisper muttered into his hair sent shivers up his spine. Oh, what _could_ the tetrarch do for him? What couldn’t he, honestly. He could do anything and Xefros would instantly feel like a million dollars. He was so easy. Instead of answering, though, he just shrugged, using that as pretext to huddle further under the wing that hugged him, prolong the warmth that spread through his chest. The tetrarch awarded him with a kiss pressed onto his hair and his soul immediately beamed; he felt his cheeks color and his headache dissipate. It was a miracle.

“Take a nap and drink some water.” The tetrarch suggested, tone soft and kind, making him smile.

He already felt so much better that taking a nap right now would surely bring him some good dreams. He nodded a bit, in response to that, and leaned away from the tetrarch’s embrace to look up into his face, into his favorite emotionless façade. His eyes briefly glanced at the reflection on the aviators, then dropped to the soft lips underneath it. He could’ve kissed the tetrarch from this close, but the thought alone was terrifying enough to paralyze him. They hadn’t done that since Friday, and pushing his luck was the opposite of a good idea, so he wouldn’t, and he didn’t. He simply offered the tetrarch a smile before leaving the table altogether.

His dreams ended up being composed of nightmares and strange, nonsensical imagery randomly tossed together in the middle of it all, he supposed for emotional relief. The nightmares were filled with quick flashes of upsetting events that he very ardently hoped would never happen and that threw him down a despairing spiral, almost like being pushed down a staircase that led into nothingness, into the depths of the void, and that left an aching behind. Flashes of the tetrarch running through a rain of flaming arrows, running toward Karkat, tackling Karkat into the ground and meeting with his face, touching him, closing the gap between their bodies. Flashes of the tetrarch killing Dave and rescuing Karkat, getting his veins rotten through in the basement and a death sentence put over his head. The tetrarch grabbing Karkat by the face and pulling him under his wing, taking him up to 303, claiming him under his initials, swapping Xefros out and choosing Karkat over him.

He woke up with a beating heart and a sheen of sweat on his forehead, breathless and terrified and feeling the ache, the void, very, very clearly in the pits of his stomach. He sat in his recuperacoon for a minute longer, breathing in, breathing out, and digesting his dreams, all of the symbolism, the imagery. He didn’t like it; not the dream, and not how he felt about Karkat at the moment. It was unavoidable, and Karkat wasn’t to blame, which made him feel bad for feeling bitter and jealous and completely, disgustingly vile. He smoothed a hand down his own chest, having his pulse beat under his palm. He had never felt so rotten before, so wretched and evil, sick with himself, ashamed of himself; it was stupid. Feeling any which way about Karkat was stupid, and feeling any less appreciated by the tetrarch was even more so. It made no sense, only served for him to victimize himself and keep quiet about it. Dumb, pointless. He got out of the cocoon.

Up at 303, it took him a moment to remember the right knock, the newest code that would let the tetrarch know it was him, because they were always together and only the tetrarch had the key. Incidentally, the tetrarch also had a key to his and Karkat’s room, but his roommate didn’t have to know that. He knocked, and waited, and nothing happened. Maybe that had been the wrong code, although, no, it couldn’t have, but he tried another one, anyway, the previous one, and waited, uncertain this time, feeling to have knocked the wrong sequence. Nothing, so he tried the first one again, and waited, and nothing. Maybe the tetrarch wasn’t here. He pulled out his phone and called him. At the second ring, the tetrarch picked up.

“Hey, Xefros.”

“Hey… Where are you?”

“Up at the penthouse; we’re tracking Karkat down.”

That name, in this voice, made him instantly nauseous. He shut his eyes.

“Okay.”

“It’s seven-twelve, show up here.”

He hung up. No, he wouldn’t show up there, not in a million years would he show up there. His jaw set at the mere thought of it, already having him breathe heavy and knit his brows together. He’d much rather not show up there, but he would, at one point or another, maybe after some stalling, when he felt guilty enough to do it, bad for making others wait for him. For the moment, however, he took the stairs down, decided to waste some time at the canteen with whatever they happened to offer him at this hour, be it week-old tuber paste or highly caffeinated soda or literally anything else; he barely cared, honestly. The circumstances called for extreme accomodation tactics, which he so happened to be proficient at.

Right as he arrived at the first floor, however, he saw Karkat walking in through the front door. Their eyes immediately locked, and a boiling-hot wave of livid rage quickly rushed up to his head in primal response to the sight, filled his chest up, had his hands in tight fists. It only lasted a second, though, and he cooled down right after, exhaling it all out somehow, frightened with himself beyond belief. Fright had surpassed anger and what had that been? He had never wanted to strangle someone to death before, much less a dear friend of his. His hands shook, but he kept them down, out of focus, and walked over to the front door, where Karkat stood still, watching him with two big, sad eyes, as if anticipating the scolding that Xefros was about to give him. Normally, those round reds would’ve made him feel bad, but, right now, he felt nothing but his own misery. It must’ve been the dream from a second ago.

He didn’t give Karkat his entire piece of mind, only a very small portion of it, just to alleviate himself of the burden that was worrying after this guy, just to let some of that pent-up frustration roll off of his shoulders with the catharsis of it all. He didn’t say all that needed to be said at the moment because it was simply too much. He had been through _a lot_ because of this guy’s inability to answer a damn call and, right now, standing in front of him, staring at the end of his incessant worrying and the tetrarch’s obsession over this whole thing, he couldn’t even bring himself to be mad at it, or at Karkat, or at anything. He was just tired. Exhausted, really. He expressed a little bit of his frustration with none of the emotion behind it just because it needed to be said and followed with a change of topic to inquire after Dave, and hear Karkat’s side of the story. Everyone had been debating so intensely about whether or not Dave was a good person that, deeply engrossed in the middle of it, none of them cared to ask Karkat what he thought. After all, Karkat was the only one who knew Dave’s real self, probably. If Dave wasn’t the two-faced snake that the tetrarch very confidently thought that he was.

Karkat told him that no, Dave wasn’t bad. Dave was good; what a surprise. Hearing that from Karkat firsthand probably should’ve made Xefros believe him, but, in reality, it didn’t. It only had him wondering whether Dave had ingrained that into Karkat’s head without him noticing or if Karkat sincerely and independently thought it. He didn’t really know what to believe, naturally inclined to take the tetrarch’s side but also pretty sure that Karkat wasn’t being too heavily influenced by the human to the point of losing sight of his own self, right and wrong. Karkat seemed pretty rational about this, but the tetrarch was always so convinced, too, and he just didn’t know. He didn’t know. He was so tired; his eyes wanted to shut forever and his soul wanted to inhabit another dimension, but at least his headache was almost gone and, now, with Karkat here, he wouldn’t have to worry anymore and the tetrarch could finally move on with his life. This entire situation would soon disappear. He told Karkat to report up to the penthouse, where everybody currently tried to track his GPS signal or something, and went ahead to the canteen, treat himself to whatever that they happened to have.

They actually, surprisingly didn’t have a single thing for him, so he filled a plastic cup with water and sipped on that instead. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t here for the food or the drink, he just needed some time alone to clear his head and breathe for once. Karkat was back and that was truly great, it was so good; he couldn’t wait for the tetrarch to stop thinking of and talking about Karkat so much. Jeez. He had a sip of water and leaned his back on the wall. It was… Upsetting… That Karkat’s absence had affected the tetrarch so much, and he didn’t know why. Should it have felt upsetting? Should it have felt something else? Like, what, then? Maybe he should’ve admired the tetrarch’s conviction to find their friend instead, maybe he should’ve cared about it more. Maybe he was the one in the wrong, and wouldn’t be too surprised to find that that was true.

Enough about Karkat, though. He wouldn’t hear that name in conversation for a while now, and that was wonderful to think about. It put him in a better mood already. Finishing his cup, he trashed it and left the canteen, stopping just before the elevators across the front door. They all expected him up there, but he really would rather not go. Not for any particular reason; he didn’t know why trepidation filled his stomach and foreboding crawled under his skin now that everything was fine. He should’ve felt this earlier, right when Karkat had gone missing; when he saw Karkat running off into the night last Friday, not now. He shook his head, ignored that completely and pressed the button.

The penthouse looked very normal for the trolls who lived here to act like such douchebags about it. They didn’t have a flatscreen or a jacuzzi, just some balconies here and there for smokers, probably, which didn’t give them the right to brag about this place, but whatever. Xefros didn’t think much of it while crossing the hallway full of highbloods that eyed him strangely, trying not to let that get to him, and knocking on 712. He could hear the faint and muffled sounds of his friends’ voices bleed through the wood of the door, but not really make out the words that they were saying. Aradia soon let him in, and closed the door again behind him. Strangely enough, Karkat wasn’t here. Had he not come up at Xefros’ request? Xefros opened his mouth to ask, and maybe let them all know that Karkat was here and was fine, when his brain suddenly unscrambled the heart of the discussion that had been fervently going on before he arrived and had him paralyzed.

“I don’t care if he’s so steadfast to defend the guy; that doesn’t mean fucking shit, Sollux. So Karkat’s over the moon with this dude; what proves that Dave hasn’t been indoctrinating him to think so this entire time?”

The tetrarch’s voice instantly bashed his skull in with a mace, leaving such a huge indentation behind that the headache it formed felt as if reverberating through the entirety of his brain. He literally wanted to die.

“Well, first of all, he’s a fucking idiot, and second, KK seems happy with him. If that’s true, then it doesn’t matter if it’s because he was brainwashed to think so or not. I honestly don’t give a fuck.”

“You really don’t care if your friend is being taken advantage of or not?”

“Seems he’s liking that, MM.”

They were _still_ talking about Karkat. He really must not have come up here, then. It hurt a little to know that Xefros’ request had been ignored, but it was fine. He didn’t mind that. Walking up to the tetrarch, he took his arm for attention, cutting his moirail off before he could retaliate Sollux.

“Karkat’s back. He’s here in the building right now.”

The four trolls in the room looked at him and all informed him that they knew that already, that Karkat had been up here a minute ago, just before he showed up. That made him feel pretty stupid, but, more importantly, it didn’t make sense as to why the discussion hadn’t died with Karkat’s appearance.

“Well, what’s the problem, then? He’s alright.”

“He’s not alright; he’s in a potentially hazardous situation.”

“No, he isn’t.” Sollux jumped in, shaking his head.

In all honesty, he kind of agreed with Sollux here, which made it easier to voice his opinion right after Sollux’s input. Two versus one wasn’t that scary of a concept, when he took the side of someone who had pretty much debated this topic with the tetrarch for two whole days now. Sollux’s strong stance and overall fearlessness to headbutt the tetrarch made him feel safe enough to speak up, too.

“Yeah, I don’t think he is. I just talked to him, and he said that Dave’s fine, that he’s not dangerous. I, well, I think we should trust him, I mean, no one here really knows that human.”

“You seriously believe him?” The tetrarch asked, scowling down at him from behind the shades. His shoulders absently raised in defense.

“Yeah, I think I do. He really likes Dave and I think that’s all that matters. I think we should, you know, let them be, I guess.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous.”

His cheeks immediately flared up with that, eyes widening. The tetrarch continued.

“He’s clearly under external influence and none of you fucking idiots care to do a single thing about it.”

His hand let go of the tetrarch’s arm, heart pounding fast, face packed with shameful color. He had never felt so offended by the tetrarch, which, he imagined, should’ve hurt very deeply, but it didn’t. Instead, it just really pissed him off.

“No, I think you’re letting this get to your head. It’s not a big deal--”

“It’s _not_ a big deal?”

Getting cut off by the tetrarch filled his lungs with fire and closed his hands in fists. Suddenly, he was seeing red.

“No, it isn’t! It’s fine, tetrarch, everything’s fine! Why can’t you believe that? Why do you have to _always_ find something?”

“Xefros, I’m not nitpicking or some shit, I’m dealing with a serious fucking situation here.”

“No, you’re problematizing a perfectly fine interaction between two great people so you can play the hero and have everyone look up to you.”

“What the fuck? Karkat’s--”

_“Shut up about Karkat!”_

The shrill volume of his shouting had the entire room wide-eyed in surprise, but he could barely see the others; all that his eyes really focused on was the unbreakable skepticism of the tetrarch’s impassive façade, which both unnerved and infuriated him. He had never felt such raw exasperation toward the tetrarch before, and much less displayed it to him so truthfully, so crudely like this.

“So you don’t give a fuck, either.”

The tetrarch’s calm, low and composed tone did nothing to soothe his rage.

“No, I don’t give a fuck about some made up shit that’s in your head, fucking sorry.”

“Fine.” The tetrarch spoke while crossing the room, resigned and disgusted. “I don’t need help to put the human in his place.”

“You’ll _just_ end up in the basement again and accomplish _nothing,_ like the first time!”

“No, I know what to do now.”

With that, the tetrarch left the room, pulling the door closed behind himself. Not slamming it, not raising his voice; simply walking out, all civilized and level-headed, as if he hadn’t just argued with his moirail for the first time in his entire life. It was impressive how easily he took all of this in stride, without seeming to think much of it, while Xefros was damn near having a heart attack right now; his hands trembled and breath escaped him. He hyperventilated as the adrenaline in his bloodstream crashed and left him weak, cold at the fingers and regretful at heart. The three trolls that had watched all of this unfold remained perfectly silent, hiding in his peripheral, petrified. He honestly couldn’t bring himself to look at them, too upset and embarrassed to do that without immediately breaking into tears right now, so he left.

For the rest of the night, he hid in his room.


	5. Cherry bomb

In the morning, the tetrarch didn’t show for breakfast, and he couldn’t stop blaming himself for it, because, maybe, if they hadn’t gone off the rails last night, then the tetrarch wouldn’t have left, wouldn’t have potentially gone out there to do something dumb, to get himself in trouble, to leave Xefros worrying, and imagining, and supposing. He deserved this, though; deserved feeling this way; feeling absolutely awful, sad, regretful and disgusting because, after all, he had brought this upon himself, and really, intensely hated it. Every minute of it. He hadn’t been in control the night before; it had all been an out of body experience where he blacked out and exhaled really strongly. He couldn’t honestly say that it hadn’t been cathartic, though, but all the feelings that it had helped alleviate it had only restocked with something else; with other, equally upsetting emotions that had his feet bouncing and his jaw setting. He watched the door for the entirety of their breakfast in waiting, in anticipation, only to be let down when breakfast ended and the tetrarch still hadn’t shown. 

Out in the lobby, everyone waited, impatiently glancing at their phones and making Xefros’ already dangerously high anxiety levels skyrocket. They didn’t  _ want _ to wait for the tetrarch, that was clear, so he took the initiative and ran up to the third floor before they left without him, to hopefully find him in his room, alive, breathing, and well. Alive. Breathing. He barely saw the steps while flying over them, climbing the stairs faster than he had ever done before. Well. The secret knock was fresh on his mind from last night, so he wasted no time in recreating it with a fist on the door, under the 303 hammered into the wood. He waited for about three seconds of deafening silence before repeating the knock, in the right pattern, with bouncy legs and jittery hands. No answer. He knocked again, growing increasingly worried, increasingly regretful; he should’ve apologized. If he had, then maybe the tetrarch would’ve been in his room right now. Maybe the tetrarch wouldn’t have ran off last night. He knocked again, feeling his heart shoot up to his throat and choke him. 

He fished out his phone and immediately called the tetrarch. One ring, two rings, three, four, voicemail. Fuck! He tried again, breathing weird, swallowing air. One, two, three, voicemail. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit--

“Xefros?” 

He turned so fast at the mention of his own name that the world threatened to spin and his feet nearly dropped him onto the ground. It was only Karkat. Drowning deep into the slimey entrails of his own mind, racing from the adrenaline in his veins, he couldn’t breathe in, nor out, and stood frozen in space time continuum for what felt like an hour and a half. Karkat’s big eyes seemed surprised, but Xefros couldn’t very well register that; his brain had shut down and his vision had gone black, lost in the abyss, until Karkat spoke to him again, asking whether he had managed to reach the tetrarch’s number or not. He replied negatively, suddenly well enough in the head to think at all, and put his phone away. They had to go, Karkat informed him; the buses were about to leave and the tetrarch wasn’t here, or anywhere, and Xefros didn’t have a single clue where to look next because he was the worst moirail out there, in existence, and didn’t know the first thing about the tetrarch; didn’t know the places that he went to, couldn’t really think of one at the moment, not a single one, and he wanted to breathe, he needed to breathe. 

“I’m sure he’ll be there for class.” Karkat reassured him, voice so soft that it almost got lost in the stuffiness of Xefros’ sponge for a brain. He heard that, but might as well not have. It hurt. He covered his face with both hands, pressing the heels of his palms hard into his eyes, trying to think, trying to clear out the fog, to make sense of anything, but failing, and exhaling through his mouth. His head hurt. Dropping his hands to rest at his sides, he didn’t know anything. Karkat motioned for him to follow, and he did, mindless, lost, stupid. He didn’t know a single thing. 

A blink later, and he was sitting in class, staring blankly at the whiteboard, with static pouring out of his ears and nothing in his brain. The world was bouncing, it made him nauseous, it was bouncing fast, but it was just his legs, feet quickly tapping on the floor, over the beige tiles that, in contrast with the black and white of his shoes, looked strangely off. Had the flooring of this place always been beige? Had the walls always been white, and the front of the class so far away, the professor so small? Xefros blinked, and the professor had changed. Who was this, now, suddenly? He couldn’t remember a thing. He barely even knew who he was and his head hurt so, so bad that he just, he just, he wanted to lay down and nap. His arms stung, as if on fire, and the world pounded, and his hands ached, his legs hurt, he wanted a nap. He needed a nap. He really, really, really, he, he missed the tetrarch. Where was he, was he alright? Was he alright? Hadn’t he mentioned something, ah, he had said that he’d go after the human by himself, wasn’t that right?, because nobody wanted to help him with that, so had him really? Had he actually gone after Dave last night, and got caught on the streets, maybe got caught with his claws deep into Dave’s throat and shot on sight, a single bullet to the head, a nine millimeter lodged right into his skull. Xefros shivered, growing pale, firmly holding onto himself. His fingertips pressed down and that hurt. He had made a mess of his forearms without noticing, what an idiot. What a useless, helpless, pathetic… 

That explained why the tetrarch wasn’t here, if he really had gone after Dave. If they hadn’t killed each other, then Dave probably knew where the tetrarch was. Xefros managed to ask after him to Karkat just as they were dismissed for lunch break, but, apparently, Karkat hadn’t spoken to Dave yet this morning, which was bullshit. He didn’t buy that for a minute; Karkat was  _ always _ in contact with the human, and, by now, Xefros wasn’t sure whether he could really trust Karkat or not, since the guy always seemed to side with the humans on everything. It felt, to him, that Karkat was hiding something. Maybe he and Dave were in this together, and both knew where the tetrarch was. Maybe they had him in captivity, fuck!, but why? What would they want from him, revenge? Was that it? In the tetrarch’s words, what an elaborate plan for something so petty. That probably wasn’t it. Maybe Karkat really didn’t know. 

As they left the classroom, Karkat excused himself to the bathroom, most likely as a ruse to go and meet up with Dave for lunch. Idiot! Xefros would follow him; he had to speak with Dave, ask him about the tetrarch, urge some answers out of him somehow. He was honestly so sick of hearing about this guy and having a human constantly in his life, taking the tetrarch’s attention away from him, and monopolizing his thoughts the entire time. It was upsetting, truly damaging, but he wouldn’t follow Karkat right away. He let both Aradia and Sollux take him to the food court for now, as not to arouse any suspicion, and excuse himself later. See, he knew how to do this; it wasn’t difficult and he wasn’t so helpless. He could get around.

The three of them walked into the cafeteria, got in line for some disgusting goop, and sat down at a table near the windows. One, two, three spoonfuls and Karkat still wasn’t back. Nobody took that long in the bathroom. One, two spoonfuls and he was meeting with Dave, of course he was. Of  _ course _ he was, and Dave knew where the tetrarch was. Had they clashed at all? Well, yes; the tetrarch had very strongly suggested intent to attack Dave at first sight, which Xefros didn’t doubt at all, he just hoped it had been done away from the police, and that Dave hadn’t reported the tetrarch, because if he had this time, if he had, then, then… But if Dave was  _ here, _ then had the tetrarch failed to deliver the message? Had he been unable to stop Dave from continuing his interaction with Karkat? Karkat. Even after a whole night, his blood still boiled at the name because if it hadn’t been for Karkat, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t have had a reason to shout at the tetrarch, and drive him away, and miss him so much, so much, fuck, fuck. 

He took out his phone, tapped onto the tetrarch’s icon. His hands were shaking. 

_ tetrarch _

He was so sorry for yesterday, so sorry, so sorry, so sorry. He shouldn’t have said a single thing, and he had been wrong, anyway; he deserved to feel this way now, this pain. He deserved this and the tetrarch had no obligation to disclose his whereabouts to him. 

_ are you okay? _

That was really the only question that mattered. He put his phone away and finished his plate before getting up with the excuse that his head hurt and he’d look for the nurse’s office. That wasn’t even such a stretch, because his head was killing him, and he supposed that it must’ve been apparent on his face, too, since neither one of the trolls sitting at his table raised a brow at that. They both just wished him a swift recovery as he left, promising to meet with them later in class. 

Now he just needed to know where Karkat was, where he usually met with Dave, which portion of campus Dave usually attended, which--oh. Oh, there he was, alive and just fine, without a single scratch besides the bruises from last Friday, holding hands with Karkat. Of course. So where was the tetrarch? Had Dave really reported him? Ha, of course he had. Of course he had. Of, fucking, course, of, of course. Of course. Xefros was sweating. His hands were cold, his forehead was warm, and his legs were running. Running? He couldn’t see straight; the world blackened at the edges and all that he saw was Dave’s lanky figure approaching fast; one moment in the distance, and the next right in his face, meeting his forehead with the top of Dave’s chest. They fell to the ground; his body was above Dave’s and his ears had a deafening ringing going through them, making his head very, very light. His hands were wrapped tightly around Dave’s neck, squeezing, digging his fingertips so far into the skin that they disappeared in between the folds. Dave struggled beneath him, still half-shocked from the suddenness of the attack and slow to react and he couldn’t feel his own hands, couldn’t feel himself breathe; Dave’s face turned red just before the entire world turned black. 

A pair of hands grabbed onto his shoulders and tried to rip him away from above the human, but, instead, it shook his brain and scrambled his mind. It felt as if being slapped awake, jolted back into reality so rudely that his entire body shuddered something violent, making him stagger and a scream leave his throat. Pain shot through him in a very strange and unfamiliar way, one that he had never felt before, that made the surface of his skin burn as if shocked by electricity, the extremely high voltage kind. It was quick and only lasted a moment, but had been enough for Dave to regain logical thinking and hit a hand square on Xefros’ face, hard, going for the eyes. He instinctively brought a hand up to defend himself with, trying to swat Dave’s arm away, and losing half of the chokehold with it. Dave punched him in the face, he slashed at Dave’s arm in response, and ended with a strong hand around his own neck, squeezing the air out of him. He immediately grabbed onto the arm that strangled him, anchoring his claws deep into the skin, cutting straight through muscle, but only being good to have another hand join the first and strangle him firmer now. He choked, and the noise was disgusting; he couldn’t breathe, could barely see, his eyes filled with tears. It was terrifying. He panicked  _ hard, _ immediately regretful of everything that had led up to this point, afraid for his life, literally crying, and deathly scared of Dave, of the hands that squeezed the world into darkness and muffled the noise away. 

A sharp pain shot through his brain and he collapsed. 

When he opened his eyes again, everything hurt. His vision was blurry and gray, his head pounded his soul into oblivion, and every joint in his body ached. He brought a hand up to rub at his eyes, run a palm down his face, feel the skin there. His throat really,  _ really _ hurt, above everything, except, maybe, his head, but those were very different kinds of pain, one was physical and the other was more astral. He couldn’t really explain it, but it didn’t feel to be from this realm of reality. He rubbed at his eyes again, with both hands this time to double the efficiency at clearing out some of his vision and, and, oh, was that blood? That was blood; his fingers and palm were covered in it, on one hand, and his forearms looked, ah, they looked really bad, but this blood wasn’t his. It hadn’t come from this, from the incessant and manic scratching; his skin looked awful but not lacerated enough to coat his hand, singular, in blood, so, surely, that belonged to Dave. It was dry and cracked and he quickly tried to wipe it out on the hem of his own shirt. 

In the corner of his eye, a figure rose up. It had been sitting down on the ground next to the toilet, apparently, where he currently sat on, above the closed lid. This was a bathroom stall. 

“You’re up.” 

Looking at the troll standing next to him, he felt as if he had met her before, somehow. The green of her eyes said that they most likely didn’t have any classes together, but her face, that hairstyle; he had seen her before, at the very least. He knew this person from somewhere other than the building, he was sure of it. He squinted. 

“I know you.” 

“No, you don’t.” 

That didn’t feel right, but he didn’t contest it; he honestly didn’t trust himself with things like this. Glancing back down at his own hands, he finished the attempt to wipe very dry human blood from his fingers, which didn’t work well without water, and his body hurt too badly for him to even consider getting up to a sink right now, so he’d leave this be for the moment. His palm was tinted burgundy, but it’d be fine, matching with the rest of his forearms like this. He wished to have been wearing long sleeves today. 

“You’re Xefros, aren’t you?” 

Her emotionless tone would’ve reminded him of somebody else if it weren’t so obviously feminine. It was a soothing voice, even if flat and lifeless. 

“Yeah.” 

How did she know that? Did she know the tetrarch, somehow? Only people who knew him had any idea who Xefros was, so maybe she was part of the rebellious group that always came and went in between periods and meal breaks, whispering to the tetrarch back and forth whenever they could. Maybe she had been there last Friday, and that was where he knew her from. 

“What happened to you, man? You flew right off the handle out there, almost got yourself in trouble.” 

She saw that? He thought he had died. 

“Why are we in the bathroom?” He asked, putting forth only one of his numerous doubts at the moment. Nothing really made sense, and maybe he  _ had _ died by the human’s hands. Absently, he touched his own neck. This had been the second time that Dave had hurt him here. Didn’t Christians believe in the afterlife? Maybe purgatory was really just a very clean bathroom stall. 

“So you wouldn’t get caught killing a kid outside. It was either going to be me or somebody worse, so I made the choice for you.” 

“He died?” 

An ice cold wave pumped through his heart, despite everything. He didn’t like Dave, but attacking the kid had been a poor choice. He knew that; he had always known that. 

“I don’t think so. He seemed to have the high ground when I got to you.” 

He brought a hand up to his head, leaning back onto the tiles covering the wall. Damn. What the fuck was wrong with him? Attacking someone like that, going completely off the rails, blacking out and coming to and missing parts of his life, having holes in his memory, handing the control of his own body and mind to something else, some mysterious entity that took over sometimes and made him do awful things. He needed help. His trembling fingers hid themselves into the thick of his hair. 

“You know, Xefros, you really need to get a hold of yourself, because this could easily have gotten you taken down had I not been there to extract you from the scene. Two could’ve been killed today, you as one of them. Is this loss of self-control because you’ve been away from Dammek for a few hours?” 

At the name, his heart immediately shot up to his throat. So she really did know him, and was absolutely right about everything else. Xefros would’ve felt sheepish at himself from the callout if he weren’t so completely submerged in the mention of the tetrarch’s name instead. His heart was beating a thousand miles per minute and his brain drew a perfect blank in regards to anything else, as if a switch had been flipped inside of him and burned all of his knowledge unrelated to the tetrarch. His pulse was so erratic that his hands trembled and he couldn’t breathe right. 

“Do you know where he is?” He asked fast, words leaving his mouth so quickly that they almost tripped over one another. He leaned forward with his excitement and interest, wide eyes glued to the unimpressed greens that watched him from above. 

“Maybe I do, but if he’s kept you in the dark about it, it’s because he doesn’t want you there.” 

His heart sunk to the bottom of his ribcage. Of course the tetrarch didn’t want to see him right now, not after what had happened last night, the way he had raised his voice at the tetrarch and completely disregarded his authority. He deserved the hurt and isolation, especially considering what he had just done to Dave, and how he had so stupidly put himself at risk, too. The tetrarch was going to hear about this sooner or later and give him what for. He deserved it. Leaning back onto the toilet seat, his entire body ached. The pounding of his head and the stinging of his throat were overthrown by the deep void in the center of his chest. He felt heavy. 

“He’s right about that. I understand.” 

“Can we talk about  _ you, _ Xefros? Because you need to do something about yourself, dude. You can’t keep going like this, losing your temper and lashing out at random. It’s dangerous.” 

“I know, I’m sorry.” 

“If you’re going to explode with psionic energy, then you might as well learn how to wield it.” 

He gave her a look. 

“What?” 

At his question, her brows lifted, but she still looked unimpressed. The rest of her impassive expression didn’t change at all despite that. 

“You don’t know what you did, do you? You didn’t even see the energy field around yourself.” 

“I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Had this been when he had felt an intense pain shoot through the entirety of his body, making him scream? It must’ve been, because he couldn’t explain that otherwise. He had never felt something like it before. He wondered what kind of effects this supposed energy field had had on both Karkat and Dave, who had probably been within range of it. Dave surely, and Karkat, well. Considering that, after the blast, Karkat had stopped touching him but Dave had gone on to turn the tables on him and choke him into unconsciousness, he wasn’t sure what that meant. 

The girl before him nodded, looking pensive. 

“We really need to get you trained.” 

“That’s… Illegal.” 

In fact, psychic trolls were such a concern for society that they were kept in check with a multitude of selected pills to take every morning, in order to maintain some sort of stability in their brains and prevent explosive events such as what had happened earlier. Xefros never forgot to take his fair share, but, apparently, they weren’t enough to stop him. On second thought, he wondered if they worked at all. 

“Would you rather break the Law to protect everyone around you or let probability choose the best time for a massive breakdown?” 

He frowned; nothing about this seemed right. 

“I don’t know. I want to ask the tetrarch what he thinks.” 

The girl shook her head, visibly disappointed in his answer, but he wouldn’t change it. He didn’t know how to act in this situation and, honestly, didn’t want to have to make a single choice in regards to any of this. He just wished he could go back to class, sit next to the tetrarch, and hold his hand while learning about cutlery. That shouldn’t have been too much to ask. 

“Xefros, your dependence on Dammek will be your downfall. That showed very clearly just now.” 

His jaw set. It wasn’t rational, but his first instinctive response to this were closed fists and a deep pang that reverberated through his chest, lighting up his lungs with a sort of fire that only emerged from offense. His brows furrowed and he wanted to argue with her, wanted to very firmly tell her that his moirallegiance was the best thing in his life, and  _ not _ the problem, but he breathed in, and out, and allowed the fire to subside before opening his mouth. Speaking through flourishing emotions had never worked out for him in the past. 

“Please, don’t say that. I don’t want to hear it.” 

The girl raised both of her palms and stepped backwards toward the locked stall door. 

“Fine, but don’t dismiss it completely.” She spoke with a pointed look at him, before turning and opening the door to leave. “Meet me in the building after class if you want to know where Dammek is.” 

With that, she left, unbothered to close the stall door in her wake. Xefros, numb in place, watched his own reflection on the mirror directly in front of him, across the hall, above the row of sinks, and realized that he had never even learned her name. 


	6. Static, love, static, and Heaven personified

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went ahead and finally put together a playlist for this work with most of the songs that I mentioned in past chapters. [Here it is](https://open.spotify.com/user/oliviazanini/playlist/4DHucH1eT5Fl8IGTt6EUQ0?si=1pUkSfmxSWK70JIUGsn_Ow), if you're interested! 
> 
> This chapter is NSFW.

Class was a blur of moving colors and muffled voices directing themselves at him. His eyes watched and his ears listened but none of that information reached his brain; he was floating, consumed by his own thoughts, and how the tetrarch was probably still mad at him, and didn’t want to see him, and how badly he had damaged their relationship last night. He was fully responsible for everything that was happening to him right now and accepted the consequences. The bathroom stall girl could take him to the tetrarch, sure, but should he go meet him when the tetrarch obviously didn’t want to see him? His heart ached for this reencounter, but he didn’t know if it’d be such a good idea. Selfish was what it’d be, yeah, and would benefit him entirely, but if that happened at the tetrarch’s expense, then he wasn’t sure that he wanted it. Would he only make the tetrarch angrier with that? His reputation was low enough. He didn’t even know if the tetrarch still liked him at all. He hid his bloodied hand in the folds of his shirt and remained seated.

Memories of the bus ride home were a black hole in his mind, as if he had blinked in the classroom and woken up back at the building, going from there now. That should probably have been concerning, but he didn’t have time to consider it too much, or dwell on it a lot, because the bathroom stall girl was here, and beckoning him to follow with a hand. She was going to take him to the tetrarch and every inch of his body and soul combined yearned for it. Yeah, he’d piss the tetrarch off with that, most likely, but he needed it so much. He  _ needed _ it; his chest hurt just thinking about it, with how much he craved this, so he followed. He didn’t care about the consequences, he’d deal with them later. Right now, he followed her across the entrance hall and toward the stairway with a fluttery heart and too much excitement to keep his breathing at a normal pace, or keep his feet from skipping. He knew that he had a big, stupid grin on his face from this, but he honestly didn’t care. He was way up and above the clouds to care; his body barely even hurt anymore. 

His euphoria only lasted a second, though, and immediately crashed when the girl took the stairs down instead of up. Why were they going to the basement? His body froze in place, refusing to move; his breathing ceased. The tetrarch was in trouble. The world went dark for a second, almost making him lose his balance, but he managed to lean onto the closest wall to stay on his own feet. The girl was already at the bottom of the first half flight by now, while he couldn’t even function. The tetrarch was passed out again, with unidentifiable drugs in his bloodstream, a second time defenseless to the indoctrinations of the system, and Xefros took full responsibility for that. It was all his fault and he was about to be sick. 

The girl noticed that he wasn’t following, and turned to glance at him, still at the top of the stairs. She was wholly and completely unimpressed at that. 

“Are you good?” She asked in her characteristically flat tone that barely reached Xefros’ ears over the turbulence of his own screaming thoughts. 

“He’s in rehab? He’s in…” 

He couldn’t breathe. The world darkened at the edges again, but didn’t totally go out this time. 

“He’s fine. It was a conscious choice.” 

“What?” 

What the fuck did that mean? It made no sense. His brain was too scrambled to understand what that entailed. 

The girl rolled her eyes. 

“C’mon, you can ask him yourself. He’s up.” 

His heart leapt, suddenly, and had him dashing down the stairs with enough speed to almost make him trip on the steps. He could ask the tetrarch himself, and talk to him, and hear his voice again, and see him, and touch his hand, and, and, maybe not that, but, ah! Ah! He was flying high again, barely feeling his own legs as they followed the girl down the rest of the stairs and into the basement, past the double doors, down the white hallways. He skipped and his heart soared; he wanted to run just to get there faster, just to see him sooner. His heart was beating so fast that it almost made him blackout. 

Dozens of doors deep into the first hallway, they came to a stop. One of them was open, and from within echoed two different voices that conversed calmly, one of them very obviously belonging to the tetrarch. When it reached him, he paused; his feet refused to move while his ears listened intently and his pulse pounded all throughout his body. The tetrarch spoke in a low voice and Xefros couldn’t make out what he was saying, but that didn’t really matter; he was transfixed by the soundwaves, regardless of what message they passed. He wished he could kiss the intangible. 

The girl, standing by the doorway, watched him approach it with slow steps and a beating heart, as if afraid of this suddenly turning out to be a dream, not real, afraid to break the illusion. He walked to the door frame and stopped right in front of it, clutching at the shirt that covered his chest in an attempt to keep his heart from breaking out and running off at the sight that welcomed him: the tetrarch, safe and sound, sitting on the edge of a hospital bed, speaking with someone who sat off to the side, outside of Xefros’ immediate field of vision. He didn’t even care to look at the other person; his entire focus was on the tetrarch, and how the conversation stopped when he showed up, and the tetrarch turned to look at him. The tetrarch, looking at him…! He could’ve passed out. The brows above the aviators formed a slight crease in between them as the tetrarch moved up to stand on both feet and motioned for him to come in. 

Absently, his brain noticed the other guy getting up, as well, but he didn’t actively register it, too busy walking into the room and closing some distance between himself and the tetrarch with quick, fluttery steps that matched his heart rate. 

“I’ll see you later, Dammek.” The guy said, somewhere in the peripherals of Xefros’ focus, making the tetrarch give him a brief nod in response. 

“See you, man.” 

The guy left. It was only the two of them now, Xefros’ pounding heart and too much air in his lungs. He promptly took one more step into the tetrarch’s personal space, because private property was a capitalist myth and he  _ needed _ further closeness, but the tetrarch’s brows furrowed harder from it, so maybe it had been no good. Maybe he was overstepping his boundaries, and he wished he cared about that right now. He wished he cared to be more sensible to the tetrarch’s feelings, but putting himself first felt so good, and being selfish was so rewarding. Being close to the tetrarch again was exactly what he needed. His skin prickled wonderfully to prove it. 

The tetrarch tilted his head askew, scowling still, and brought a hand up to Xefros’ chin, taking his jaw to turn his face an inch to the side. It was embarrassing, but the touch had his eyes closing and his cheeks coloring from how deprived he had been for the last ten or so hours. This was everything.

“Xefros, what happened to you?” 

His name on the tetrarch’s tongue again, the low tone, so close to his face, sounding so worried for him, so loving and careful, had him shivering. He really wanted the tetrarch to kiss him right now. 

“I, ah.” He had almost forgotten the question as quickly as it had reached him. “I was in a fight.” 

“A fight?” 

“Yeah.” Memories of it quickly flashed before his eyes, causing him to open them again and his heart to skip a beat. He didn’t want to talk about it. “Don’t worry, though. It was, it was nothing.” 

“Nothing? Xefros, your fucking neck--”

He cut the tetrarch off by accident, stepping away from him with a sudden movement that ceased all contact between them. His breathing was quick, suddenly; his hands trembled and he didn’t want this. He covered his face with both palms, pressing them hard into his skin. This reminded him of the night before, the worst of his life; vivid memories of it lit themselves on fire right before his very eyes and he couldn’t breathe. The tetrarch screaming at him, the tetrarch screaming at him and running off  _ pissed _ and isolating himself from him for, for, for an  _ entire _ day and…!

“Don’t yell at me, please. Please, don’t yell at me. Please.” 

His chest hurt and he was suffocating.

“I’m not yelling.” The tetrarch spoke in a purposefully soft tone now, making himself sound harmless and tender. It succeeded in helping Xefros’ lungs draw in some air, for once. “Xefros, I’m worried about you. I want to know what happened.” 

He breathed in, deeply, and out, deeply. Again, again, until his hands stopped trembling and his brain could think right. He was fine, it was all fine. A long exhale, and he felt himself calm down a little bit. This wasn’t a replay of yesterday’s events and they wouldn’t fall out again. It was alright; the tetrarch wasn’t mad at him. The tetrarch wasn’t mad at him. A sob tried to come up, but he didn’t let it. He breathed out again. 

“I really don’t want to talk about it.” His voice was strained, but the message still got through. He gingerly wiped at his eyes before removing both hands from his face, and turned to look at the tetrarch. 

Behind the aviators, a blank expression watched him. 

“Okay.” The tetrarch said after a heartbeat, resuming his seat on the edge of the cot and motioning for Xefros to join him. “Come here, I missed you.” 

The words nearly choked him with how big they made his heart. He promptly walked over and climbed up next to the tetrarch, so close that their thighs touched, but not nearly close enough for full satisfaction. He wanted to be on the tetrarch’s lap, with their mouths together and their breathing as one, but this was fine, too. It would have to do for now. He was self-indulgent, not completely insane. Yet. The tetrarch wrapped an arm across his shoulders and pulled him closer for a hug, brought his face to rest against the tetrarch’s neck and a smile to round his cheeks, lips on the tetrarch’s skin, nose buried in oranges and peaches. He breathed in, felt the warmth of his face rush down to the rest of his body, making his heart beat stronger and his chest feel fuller and everything that had happened today completely disappear from his mind. None of that mattered now, only this very moment right here, under the weight of the tetrarch’s arms and the feeling of the tetrarch’s nose pushing into his hair. He beamed bright and grinned wide; he loved the tetrarch so much. This was wonderful. 

One of the tetrarch’s hands left his back to take his forearm, hold it firmly, swipe a thumb over the fraying skin there. It stung, but he didn’t mind it. The tetrarch could touch him anywhere. 

“You did it again.” The tetrarch commented, voice soft and low pressed to his hair. 

His heart skipped a beat and his face colored; he was supposed to be more mindful of himself, of how his anxiety sometimes took over and made him bleed without him noticing it. This hadn’t happened in a long time, and he felt stupid for not stopping himself when he could have. The tetrarch must’ve been disappointed in him. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered in reply, muffling the words on the tetrarch’s skin. Despite how embarrassed he was of himself at the moment, this, right here, still felt like Heaven. He was safe in the tetrarch’s arms and could die in them. “I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t thinking. I was, I was worried that you were hurt, or in trouble, or, or just avoiding me. It wasn’t on purpose.” 

The tetrarch pressed a kiss to his head that made his chest warm. 

“I know it wasn’t, but I hate to see it on you.” 

The hand on his forearm burned, but he didn’t mind it. The tetrarch tightened the hold around him, brought him closer, and he almost took the chance to climb onto the tetrarch’s lap, but didn’t have the courage to do it. At this point, though, he sincerely wondered if the tetrarch would’ve minded, since he was half on him anyway. 

“I’m sorry for yesterday.” He mumbled against the neck pressed to his lips. “I’m sorry for everything that I said, I take it all back. I didn’t mean any of it, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

“No, you know, you were right about that. It took me a minute to realize it, but you were right. I actually came down here to really ponder and come to terms with how much I problematize solely to play the hero afterwards. I guess I want others to look up to me so much that I lose sight of the bigger picture. Which, by the way, is not Dave. He isn’t the problem.” 

That name made ice run through his veins, and his instincts pull him away from the tetrarch’s warm embrace to look up into his face, wide eyes reflecting themselves back at him on aviators. He thought this was over; he thought this topic was dead, and that they wouldn’t argue about it anymore. He couldn’t physically handle another fall out with the tetrarch over this, or anything at all. His heart was beating a hundred miles an hour from fear of the tetrarch reviving what had happened last night. 

“What?” 

The word left through trembling lips and pushed the tetrarch to continue. 

“Dave is an excerpt, humanity is the book. By analyzing the excerpt, you’re subjecting yourself to its characteristic flaws, which don’t represent the whole. When I penalize Dave for getting involved with a troll, I’m projecting the prejudices of a whole society onto a person who’s doing what they want without giving two shits about the rest of the world. It’s like trying to attribute the message of a book onto a single quote from inside of it, which doesn’t make sense, because anything out of context loses its original meaning.” 

He blinked. This didn’t explain a thing. 

“So what are we doing about Dave?” 

The tetrarch shrugged. 

“Nothing. Fuck Dave, he can do whatever he wants. I’m focusing on the bigger picture now, not losing my time with him or Karkat. They’re not worried about changing the world, and, in return, I’m not worried about their conformity. We did what we could, but they didn’t want to hear us, so, whatever.” 

He breathed out. Learning that neither one of those two would ever come between them again was so relieving that he could’ve kissed the tetrarch square on the mouth right now. Had the tetrarch been down here pondering all of this for the entire day? Xefros could’ve told him that Dave was worthless on day one, although the tetrarch was right for trying to help out more than simply throwing in the towel, like Xefros had done. Maybe he could’ve done all of this thinking somewhere else, though, and maybe he could’ve answered Xefros’ calls instead of letting him worry, too, but it was fine. It didn’t matter anymore. Xefros was just glad that the tetrarch was alright, not mad at him, and that they were together now, without Dave and Karkat in the picture. That was really, truly wonderful.

The tetrarch took his jaw again and turned his head a little to the side, firmer this time around, completely overthrowing the current mood for something else now, heavier, that Xefros couldn’t immediately name or recognize. It felt strangely familiar, though, and sent a thrill down his spine anyway. His heart skipped a beat.

“Now tell me who put their hands on you.” 

The tetrarch’s low voice, suddenly demanding and possessive, brought color to Xefros’ cheeks and an interest to spread throughout the rest of his body. This mood, he realized now, was one that he knew very intimately, and had missed a considerable amount this last week; it was the tone that the tetrarch usually used when someone happened to raise their voice at Xefros or stand a little too close to him, and Xefros loved it. This side of the tetrarch was the one that made him feel important and cared for the most. The excitement that coursed through his veins in response to it made his heart jump.

“Dave.” He answered obediently, whether or not he actually wanted to talk about the fight right now, which he didn’t, but if it made the tetrarch continue to speak  _ like this _ to him, then he’d expatiate on it for as long as the tetrarch wanted him to. He’d quite literally do anything to hang onto this moment for a little bit longer.

At his answer, the tetrarch’s brows furrowed. Xefros had known him long enough to expertly read this as either meaning that something very exciting was about to happen, like someone getting hurt as the tetrarch’s way to protect Xefros, or that he had said the wrong thing and was seconds away from being sternly admonished, which, at this point, wasn’t safe from his excitement, either. Something was so wrong with him that getting chastised by the tetrarch, once a very upsetting thought, now seemed inappropriately interesting to him. He knew that feeling this way wasn’t right, but he couldn’t help the thrill that it gave him, or how much faster his heart was beating at it. If he stared a little too openly at the tetrarch’s mouth, it was because he literally couldn’t help himself. 

With his free hand, the tetrarch pushed the aviators up his forehead, out of his eyes, and, with the hand that still held Xefros’ jaw, he fixed their faces to stare squarely at one another, visibly emphasizing his disapproval of Xefros’ answer. It was extremely difficult to not have his eyes roll back and close from how firmly the tetrarch gripped his face right now, holding onto his jaw just an inch away from hurting it. Xefros’ inner strength to keep himself in line was so outstanding that he surprised himself with that, all the while his mind couldn’t stop screaming for him to lean closer, just a little closer, and meet with the tetrarch’s mouth. 

_ “Dave?” _

The tetrarch not only sounded furious, but he looked like it, too. His tone alone was worrisome enough to snap Xefros back into reality, while the growing rage in his face pushed Xefros to want to extinguish the fire before it could get out of hand. He knew very well where this would lead if he didn’t immediately stop it, and he didn’t want the tetrarch going out there right now to pick another fight with Dave and get himself sent down here a second time this week. Third? This was already too much; he wanted the nice and heartwarming jealousy back. 

“Ah, no, it was, it was really self-defense, tetrarch. I attacked him first while he wasn’t doing anything. I was wrong.” 

“Why did you do that?” 

There was less outrage in the tetrarch’s tone now and more bewilderment, meaning that Xefros had successfully managed to keep the bomb from exploding. Good, great, except he had to talk about the fight now, and simply thinking about that already put color on his face. The embarrassment was borderline overwhelming.

“I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking, I just, I saw him and I jumped him. I don’t know. He almost died.” 

The tetrarch’s eyes gave his neck a brief glance that made his heart skip.

“Doesn’t look like he was much of a victim to me.” 

“I know, but, but he was.” 

The tetrarch shook his head, not buying that for a second, and dropped the hand from Xefros’ jaw to touch his neck next. That was so unexpected of him that it seized the entirety of Xefros’ breathing in a muted gasp as the tetrarch softly, and carefully examined his neck, mindful to not press on the bruises too much and accidentally hurt him. He couldn’t physically keep his eyes from closing this time around, at how nice it felt to have the tetrarch’s hand on his throat, thumb swiping over the skin there, palm warm and tender, healing. He could’ve leaned into the touch, but didn’t; it would’ve been too much. This was already too much. His face was a furnace and the pit of his stomach burned. Fuck. 

The hand that caressed his bruises was firm and kept him in place as the tetrarch ducked and pressed a kiss to his neck, making his heart leap up to his throat and his thighs shift closer together. He never thought that he’d get to feel the tetrarch’s lips again, so soft on his skin, sharp fangs always harmless, but only a hair away from piercing right through. He bit the inside of his cheek at a weak attempt to distract himself from how  _ good _ it felt to have the tetrarch’s mouth on him again, how warm his blood boiled, and how wonderfully his skin prickled from it. The tetrarch kissed down his neck, leaving a series of tingling sensations behind that drew his breath out and pushed his thighs completely closed. He would’ve liked to not have tilted his head back at that, but it was impossible, it was too much; at this point, he was just glad to have kept quiet this entire time. 

His touch starvation was utterly embarrassing. 

With one last kiss glued to his collarbone, the tetrarch pulled away to look him in the face and see the mess there; the burning cheeks, half-lidded eyes, and barely suppressed infatuation. The pair of bright coppers that watched him in return smoldered with seriousness, offense and possession that made his own reds drop down at those vampiresque fangs and immediately want them on his mouth. 

“Did he hurt you anywhere else?” 

His eyes slipped shut with the question. Truthfully, the answer was no, but, God, how he wanted to say yes, and just make up a place, any, all, for the tetrarch to kiss, and love, and claim. Yes, his face; yes, his thighs; yes, the entirety of his body. He shook his head, though, as his eyes reopened, giving into the honest answer instead, but… That didn’t have to be all. He could complement it with something to his advantage, not to let this opportunity go to waste, and such a golden one, too. His entire face pumped violently red before he had even pushed the question out into the open. He was ashamed of it in advance. 

“Do you want to check for yourself?” 

The tetrarch nodded in response, and his heart skipped a beat. This was a new record for his self-indulgence and a natural low for the rest of his conscience. He didn’t even know what he expected to get out of this, if anything at all, but it had his heart racing anyway, and maybe he was doing it for the adrenaline that filled his lungs with air and prickled his face with color. He leaned away from the tetrarch and pulled his shirt right off with no hesitation, letting it drop to the cot underneath the two of them. His blood felt hot, his skin shivered, and, as the tetrarch scrutinized his body with careful coppers drinking up every inch of grey, he realized that he had actually done this for the attention, just to have the tetrarch’s eyes on him again, to feel appreciated like this, in a different, more exciting light. His lethal self-consciousness would’ve been asphyxiating him right now if the warmth that flooded his chest weren’t keeping him afloat. It felt so good to have the tetrarch’s complete focus on him that he might as well have transcended. 

The tetrarch took his arm and pulled him from the edge of the cot, making him stand next to it instead. He obeyed, of course, and let the tetrarch turn him around to glance at his back for a brief second, manhandling him in a full twirl that ended with them facing each other again. When their eyes met once more, he smiled, feeling himself beam under the tetrarch’s scrutiny. He hadn’t been this happy and fulfilled in a long, long time. 

The tetrarch replied to his smile with one of his own. 

“You’re good.” The tetrarch reassured him, glancing down at his neck right after, and losing the smile with it. 

He wanted a kiss so badly that his body could barely even keep still, with feet threatening to bounce and torso leaning forward on its own, acting up entirely thoughtless, until his palms met with the cot’s edge and his face ended up far too close to the tetrarch’s, as if stopping halfway into a dive to meet with his mouth. That should’ve been an immediate regret hard-hitting enough to have him lean back away from the tetrarch’s personal space in the same second that it happened, but the tetrarch didn’t flinch at it, so he didn’t move back, either. His embarrassing boldness actually put a smile back onto the tetrarch’s face for whatever reason; a warm one that reflected onto his eyes and made Xefros’ heart swell. He briefly remembered one of the tetrarch’s passing comments about liking his smile, and felt his own double in size from the memory. 

“Come on, Xefros, kiss me.” 

The tetrarch’s low tone sent a shiver down his spine and colored his face warm. He wasn’t one to disobey orders in general, especially not when they were a literal excerpt from his daydreams, so he closed his eyes and ignored his frantic pulse while leaning forward the rest of the way, meeting with the fangs that electrified his lips; he could practically feel his own heart lodge itself up in his throat from it. The tetrarch closed a hand behind his neck and pulled him closer, holding him firmly into the kiss, making his eyes roll back and something get caught behind his tongue. He had wanted this for  _ so long  _ that he could barely stand on both feet right now, with knees threatening to buckle underneath himself and elbows wanting to give. He could feel his skin burn. 

One of his hands moved up to touch the side of the tetrarch’s face as their tongues met and the world around him melted into inexistence. The tetrarch pushed in deep, tugged onto his lips, and pressed the fangs onto his skin just shy of breaking it, making Xefros kiss him harder in an attempt to see that happen. It didn’t, but his effort had the tetrarch fastening an arm around his waist and drawing him closer until his hip found the edge of the cot and his free hand found the outside of the tetrarch’s thigh. He instantly pulled his hand back, almost as if singed, feeling his own face heat up and his heart race horribly. The tetrarch didn’t say or do anything about that, which meant that it was probably alright and he wasn’t in trouble for it, but his mind still blocked him from doing it again to see the outcome to prolonged exposure. It didn’t feel right to touch the tetrarch there, so he didn’t, and saved himself a headache. 

The hand behind his neck moved to rest on the side of it instead, dragging the tetrarch’s palm on tender skin and making it burn just a little bit, just nice enough to have Xefros hold back a sound. The tetrarch’s thumb rested above his Adam’s apple, simply feeling it, and not pressing down or squeezing at all, but making Xefros think about it, and consider it, and eagerly hope for it with a strongly beating heart and an incredible absence of shame. He was so far gone down this strange excitement path that wishing for the tetrarch to close off his trachea wasn’t even the worst of it at this point, and would’ve stricken him as romantic under the circumstances. The tetrarch didn’t do that, though, but he still found solace in the mere warmth of the palm around his neck, until it used the hold to push him back a bit and break the kiss. 

“Let me touch you.” 

The tetrarch’s voice lit a fire inside of him, or, actually, it strongly fueled the already growing fire at the pit of his stomach into a hazard. He consented with a quick and avid nod, of course, completely speechless otherwise, and had the tetrarch promptly meet with his mouth in return, even firmer this time around, making his eyes close and his body give; head tilted back from the impact as his legs just wanted to bend at this point, practically melting. The tetrarch held him into the kiss with a hand, and pushed himself from the cot with the other, closing the gap between their hips and stomachs and having Xefros’ heart skip a beat. They hadn’t been this physically close in so long that Xefros had almost forgotten how warm the tetrarch’s body was, and how soft his lips felt against his own, while a strong hand singed the skin behind his neck, and the other grabbed his side, keeping him close. The tetrarch flipped them over with two or three nicely coordinated steps until the back of Xefros’ thighs pushed onto the edge of the cot and the size of the tetrarch’s body left him no choice but to lay down, which wasn’t all bad, and, honestly, what he had been wanting for a minute now, but he wouldn’t go down alone. With an arm hooked around the tetrarch’s neck, he leaned back onto the cot, just about sitting on it. 

“Come with me, please.” He whispered against the tetrarch’s lips, half-muffled onto his skin and half-swallowed down with his tongue, but successful at delivering the message, and causing the tetrarch to climb onto the hospital bed as he laid down on it. It was so heartwarming to see the tetrarch comply to a request of his and move alongside him that Xefros couldn’t keep from smiling into the kiss, feeling his own chest get pumped full of butterflies. 

The tetrarch’s weight pressing him down was a very,  _ very _ welcome feeling; they had never been in this exact scenario before, but he immediately loved it, even though the surface of the cot was a little cold on his naked back, because he knew it’d warm up pretty soon. His legs instinctively raised themselves up to wrap around the tetrarch’s waist and lock at the ankles as the tetrarch, still with their mouths sealed hard together, rutted against his hips. His body temperature immediately skyrocketed with that, being felt mostly on his face and in between his thighs, but, at this point, that wasn’t a surprise for him; it didn’t even strike him as embarrassing. As their hips met, the tetrarch dragged a palm down his belly and felt the softness there all the way down to the waistband of his pants, where the hand just threatened to slip right under, with fingers pushing past the elastic, but not far enough to touch anything. Xefros sighed, or maybe groaned, he wasn’t sure; his head was filled with white noise and his skin prickled with every touch, taking up the majority of his focus. If the tetrarch knew just how ready he was for this, they probably wouldn’t be wasting time. Maybe he should tell. 

“Tetrarch.” He started, muttering into the tetrarch’s mouth. “Please, ah, just, just--” 

“Say it.” 

He bit his lip, feeling a shudder run through his skin. His breathing was all ragged and inefficient as the tetrarch’s palm burned the low of his stomach and their hips tantalized him through their clothes, just rewarding enough to make him want more, but not there to get him off. The fingers that slowly inched their way past his waistband made him lose all track of thought, and want them so much further down that his back would’ve arched off of the cot if the tetrarch’s weight weren’t squeezing him onto it. His own hands firmly latched onto the back of the tetrarch’s shirt in response to that, with round nails denting the fabric and getting no reaction from the tetrarch at all, except for his trademark smirk pressed against Xefros’ lips. 

“Please--” 

“Xefros--”

“Fuck me.” 

His good behavior was rewarded by the hand in his pants pushing further down, all the way to the bottom of him, curving with his bulge and untucking it upon contact, all too ready for this. The tetrarch felt firsthand just how dripping wet he was right now, and he honestly couldn’t find it within himself to feel an ounce of embarrassment at that; it was simply a fact. The bulge pushed through the gap in between the tetrarch’s fingers and very shamelessly rubbed itself on them, against the tetrarch’s hand, as if begging for attention, and being very successful at that, with the tetrarch closing a fist at the base of it and circling his wrist, making a disgusting sound come up Xefros’ throat in response. He had longed for this feeling so fervently for the entirety of the last week that experiencing it again almost made him blackout. The tetrarch stroke him in a tight grasp that had his round teeth digging into the meat of his bottom lip and his eyes squeezed shut, hands holding onto the tetrarch’s shirt for dear life and hips thrusting up some to meet with the fist on the way down. It felt so, so good that Xefros barely noticed the muffled up noises that left him as the tetrarch tugged, pulled and squeezed, getting his hand coated in red and the lining of Xefros’ underwear soaked through. He had needed this very badly, and the fact that it was happening a second time gave the possibility of future occurrences better odds. Maybe they hadn’t grown apart since the first time, after all. 

The tetrarch didn’t jerk him off for too long, and was soon pulling his hand back to get this moving along. Through heaving lungs and slitted eyes, Xefros watched him move up to stand on both knees and pull his hoodie and shirt off together, revealing the expanse of gray skin that put a skip to Xefros’ heart and a burning in his chest; those big, strong biceps and that flat, firm stomach had him breathless. As the tetrarch tossed the hoodie over the edge of the cot, Xefros fully embraced his temporary shamelessness and reached a hand to touch the tetrarch’s skin, something he had been dying to do, to feel the abs on his palm, and watch them tense under his touch. It was mesmerizing, and about the hottest thing that he had ever seen. Kneeling in between his thighs, the tetrarch didn’t seem to mind that; he simply removed the shades from atop his head, folded them, and placed them safely aside while Xefros’ greedy palms burned through skin and muscle alike, feeling the ripples of his stomach, and the thickness of his sides, so firm that Xefros could’ve anchored his claws into, but didn’t. He knew for a fact that the tetrarch would’ve killed him if he had, so, instead, he held harmlessly onto gray skin, and watched the tetrarch lean back down to meet with his mouth again. The movement had looked graceful in motion, but it hit his face hard, and busted the meat of his lip where the fangs hit them, sending his eyes rolling back, and a choked up sound to die on his palate, right before the tetrarch’s tongue covered it. Raw adrenaline ran through his veins like the most addictive poison as his blood poured out, and the tetrarch swallowed it. The hands that had once refused to draw their claws were very close to foregoing that oath now, grabbing onto the tetrarch’s back for dear life, and marking his skin in the crescent shape of Xefros’ round nails. 

He could barely fucking stand this. Having the tetrarch check every item on the list and indulge him with his embarrassing kinks, either by accident or on purpose, was too much; his cheeks burned from it, his skin prickled, his hands trembled, and he wanted more. The fangs dug into the open cuts as the tetrarch kissed him hard, and sent a sharp pain through him that had his thighs squeezing the tetrarch’s waist, and blood stinging their tongues with iron. The tetrarch noticed that, of course, and soon pulled back to look him in the face; two warm coppers, soft and focused, fixed down at the small punctures. Absently, Xefros sucked onto his own lip, waiting for the tetrarch’s judgement, already feeling himself blush under his gaze, and the embarrassment that would quickly overcome him with it. Time stilled for that one second, suspended in midair for the words to leave the tetrarch’s mouth, but that, ultimately, didn’t. Instead of saying a thing, the tetrarch leaned back down, kissed Xefros sweeter, and moved on to remove the rest of their clothes. 

Under the softness of the tetrarch’s lips, and the crushing weight of his body, Xefros could barely spare any mind to the theatrics necessary to get his pants off, followed by the tetrarch’s shorts; all he could think of, with his eyes peacefully closed and an arm strewn across the broad shoulders above him, was how much he liked this, all of it, how good he felt, and how thankful he was to have the tetrarch in his life, his demiurge and haven. The tetrarch brought his hips up, tugged onto his pants, brought him back down, and he didn’t care for any of that, happy to have his legs in the cold, and his bulge finally free. Normally, he’d be ashamed of how ready he was for this, already untucked and dripping wet, but, right now, he couldn’t think or feel much of anything; all he wanted was the tetrarch’s absolute attention on him for as long as it could last, and the simple prospect of that was enough to have him falling in love. The tetrarch pushed his thighs further apart, lowered himself in between them, and Xefros bit into the lips that kissed his own in anticipation for it, for the best part, for what he had dreamed of everyday this last week. His breathing seized when the bulge above him found his nook, and his legs anchored themselves to the tetrarch’s body as it pushed past the outer folds, slipping easily in. He sighed, but that sounded a lot more like a sob, or a whine, than anything else. 

In the heat of his own passion, he beamed, even if that looked a lot like grabbing a handful of the tetrarch’s hair while the bulge inside of him stretched his walls and bent his legs. Actually, that was exactly what beaming meant to him. The bulge moved, rubbed on his walls, and he couldn’t breathe right, all ragged and lost against the tetrarch’s face, with a heart that beat too fast and lungs that didn’t move fast enough to accompany it. He panted from sheer excitement, muffling anything that dared escape the back of his throat into the tetrarch’s mouth, and hoping that that would save him the embarrassment. It was a preemptive measure for later. 

Their hips met as the tetrarch bottomed out and the metallic taste of iron overcame his palate with the force of their kissing. His round teeth did nothing to the tetrarch’s skin, but he knew that, had they been a little bit sharper than not, he would’ve made a mess by now, and the tetrarch would’ve killed him for it. Would he? Given their last argument, he knew that the tetrarch could, and that was enough to have him trying to make it happen, but only half-heartedly, with dull nails marking his back, and round teeth sinking into his lips. The tetrarch scowled against his forehead, he could feel it on his own, and wondered if that meant anything good. He knew that the tetrarch would stop him immediately if he did something wrong, and the fact that he hadn’t yet was reassuring. The tetrarch thrusted into him, shaking the cot, pushing his back against it, and drawing a low groan from the depths of his throat to die on the tongue against his own. Their hips met off-tempo, with the bulge digging far into him, having his thighs tingle, and genetic material pour out, running down the length of his nook to puddle beneath him. 

The tetrarch didn’t take long to find a rhythm and make the legs of the cot scrape the floor with it, filling the room with a louder sound than their ragged breathings and suppressed groaning ever would. They hadn’t even closed the door for this, Xefros suddenly noticed, and the Nurse must’ve been around, so they should probably be a little quieter; the basement hadn’t been made for this. He almost wanted to tell the tetrarch to not fuck so hard, but the bulge reached in so deep, and made him feel so  _ good, _ that his back tried to arch up, pushed his stomach against the tetrarch’s, and had him doing nothing to stop it. Instead, he broke the kiss and groaned, tilting his head back a bit and sinking his nails into the body above him. This was everything. Watching him with two bright coppers, the tetrarch smirked. 

“Did you miss me?” The tetrarch asked, not as breathless as he was, but close. The reddish orange that colored his cheeks and crossed his nose was empathetic enough to make Xefros feel better about his own egregious blush. 

He nodded his response, unable to vocalize it; too hot under the skin of his own body, and too lost in the feeling of the tetrarch’s hips digging hard into his own, staggering his back against the cot, and slowly pushing it across the room.  _ Yes, _ he wanted to scream as his answer, because he had missed the tetrarch to literal insanity today, and he had missed this so, so very much that it hurt, but all he could do was choke on air and nod with his enthusiasm. His nails sunk into the tetrarch’s back, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep relatively quiet. 

The tetrarch grabbed his hip with a hand, strong fingers burying into the softness of his skin there, anchored him down, and pushed in deep, systematic now, in a perfect rhythm that reminded Xefros just how gifted the tetrarch was with his timing, playing the double bass in class like a virtuoso. His eyes squeezed shut from that, and, as his body rocked against the cot, his calves worked as a pendulum, making his feet bounce behind the tetrarch’s back, and nearly hit his ass on the way down. The tetrarch wasn’t kissing him anymore, and that made it a lot more difficult to keep minimalistic about this, as muffled sounds escaped his swollen lips, and blood pierced his tongue; he had been biting into the insides of his mouth without realizing it, and it stung with open wounds. 

“Tetrarch, I…” He could barely breathe, and his mind was an incomprehensible mess, but his body was so warm, so hot, just short of catching on fire, and his skin was melting from his bones, and he felt so good, so whole, so appreciated that he needed to say it out loud, needed to let the tetrarch know how grateful he was for this, how much the tetrarch meant to him, because he never had. He never could. He choked on his own breathing instead, and had the tetrarch angle their hips to hit his seedflap square on, pulling a strangled noise out of him, and the claws from his hands, but none of that registered into his brain, currently too flooded with so much feeling that he could’ve exploded, and knew he was dangerously close to doing so. His legs trembled, his thighs grasped the tetrarch’s waist in a fierce squeeze, and genetic material poured out of him, he felt it. With every thrust, he felt it, and that only pushed him closer to the edge. 

This was too much, and he wanted to say it, to let the tetrarch know, but the tetrarch dived back down and sealed their mouths together just as he was about to, muffling his warnings and swallowing his pleas. Too much. The tetrarch buried himself to the hilt, pushed hard onto the seedflap, and sent Xefros pulsing tight around him, whining and sobbing into his mouth, cutting his back open by accident. It was as intense as the first time, if not more, and had Xefros’ mind in a complete blank as his body throbbed, his legs squeezed, and his blood burned. The tetrarch muffled a groan and kissed him hard, unmoving for a second, shuddering under Xefros’ palms, and, even though Xefros was distracted by his own elation, he knew what to expect this time, and had the tetrarch fill him up with a noise in his throat and an iron grip on Xefros’ hip. They shuddered, sighed, and the tetrarch kissed him sweeter next, with a softer feeling all about him, letting go of his hip and pulling out. 

Xefros was quick to hold him, to grab his broad shoulders in blood-curdling desperation and keep him from leaving, envisioning the last time, and how awfully he had felt then. To his peace of mind, the tetrarch didn’t mean to part from him so soon, and didn’t even try to this time; kissing him with passion, and touching him softly; one hand to caress the bruise on his hip, as if apologetic, and the other to cup his face, appreciative. The tetrarch pulled back from the kiss to look him in the face, but the amount of emotion in those coppers put Xefros under a spotlight, and made him unable to hold the stare. Instead, he cast his eyes down at the tetrarch’s fangs, and his angled jaw, and felt a thumb on his own bottom lip, drawing it down to bare some of his teeth. 

“Sorry.” The tetrarch commented, referring to the cuts. “I’ll fix that.” 

“It’s okay.” 

He really didn’t mind it. 

Finding a pail in this place turned out to be a lot easier than they thought it would’ve been for a rehabilitation center, where all that happened here were injections and comatose life suspension. As he went through every piece of furniture in the room, the tetrarch came across one at the bottom drawer of a cabinet, and quickly moved onto the next problem, what they’d do with it full. Pacing the room in only his shorts, the tetrarch plotted the next step, and theorized about this place, philosophizing on the basis for an empty pail to be located where its subjects were unconscious during the majority of their stay. As per usual, the tetrarch went on with his soliloquy for a lengthy period as Xefros busied himself with the pail, set it aside, then moved on to redressing himself, all the while very anxiously focused on the open door of the room that, yes, had remained blatantly open this entire time. The tetrarch knew about it, had seen it, obviously, but didn’t seem to mind it, always too wrapped up within himself to care for much of anything else. Fleetingly, Xefros wished to have just an ounce of the tetrarch’s self-assertion. 

“Let’s just leave it here.” He suggested, pushing with the toe of his shoe to hide the pail under the cot. The tetrarch watched him from across the room, seeming very comfortable without a shirt on in this chilly air. 

“Doesn’t strike me as very smart, dude. It’s clearly in view of anyone.” 

“Please, can we leave it?” 

“Of course.” An ethereal voice kindly replied to him, startling him to near quietus with the suddenness of it. It was only the Nurse, standing by the doorway now, and making Xefros wonder if that was really that much better than an undead being communicating with him from another realm. “I’ll make sure that the Drones take that one for you.” 

The heat that rose up to Xefros’ face at that was enough to cease his breathing and completely paralyze him in place, while the tetrarch, standing half-naked only a few feet from him, raised his brows in pleasant surprise, unbelievably nonchalant given the circumstances. At this point, Xefros wondered if the tetrarch’s self-assertion ran just that deeply, or if it was his pride that was infrangible. Either way, he wanted a tenth of that kind of confidence. 

“Thanks.” The tetrarch replied to her, quickly followed by, “Can I ask you--” 

But she was gone. Her tall and slender frame hidden underneath long robes glided off from the doorframe, and disappeared behind the wall. The tetrarch tried to chase her, of course, and dashed for the door, but the moment he turned to where she had vanished, his shoulders dropped along with his breath, and, from inside the room, Xefros knew that he had lost her a second time. 

“Dammit!” The tetrarch hissed under his breath on the walk back, but Xefros decided not to fuel that fire, and kept quiet about it. 

This felt different from the first time. Not because of the different location, or the Nurse’s appearance, and, frankly, Xefros wasn’t sure exactly  _ what _ made it different, but he felt the difference within himself, and in the air between them. Maybe because it hadn’t been their first time anymore, and maybe it was because the tetrarch didn’t kiss him goodnight right after it and left for his room. In rehab, they still had a minute longer together, where the tetrarch, in his dismal disappointment, put the rest of his clothes on, and took Xefros’ hand to accompany him upstairs. Xefros slipped the tetrarch’s hoodie on to hide the ugly wounds on his forearms, and the tetrarch didn’t mind that, or even called him out on it, simply taking it in stride as they left the basement together. 

“I can’t sleep in my room.” He said, two flights up. “Karkat might be there.” 

After the fight with Dave, he really didn’t want to see Karkat right now, and was sure that his friend felt similarly about it. The tetrarch nodded his immediate understanding of that, and held Xefros’ hand up to 303 where they shared his recuperacoon. That night very easily ended up being one of his most restful ones, and if he had had any doubts about the legitimacy of his red feelings for the tetrarch before, the triumphant thundering of his heart right now should’ve been enough to quell his inquiries. The realization came to him so quietly, and so sweetly, that he mistook it for a dream nestled against the tetrarch’s chest.


	7. The mountain

In the morning, as was custom, they didn’t talk about it, but, this time, Xefros didn’t mind that, because the tetrarch wasn’t actively avoiding the subject, either. Whereas before they sort of, not really, but kind of pretended that their night together hadn’t happened, this time the tetrarch greeted him with a good morning, followed by a comment on how the sopor slime had completely healed Xefros’ mouth, and his lips were no longer pierced. It’d be lying to say that that hadn’t panged him through with a little bit of disappointment, but the tetrarch’s remark filled him with enough appreciation to drown that out a bit. If he had to choose, he supposed he’d rather have the tetrarch openly acknowledge those pails than have the wounds on his face last a little longer, despite how much he liked them. The observation also made him check his arms, and make sure that they, too, were healed. That he was unquestionably glad for. 

The canteen was pretty much full and beaming with activity by the time the two of them got in line to fill their trays with goop. Nothing exceptionally interesting or even remotely outstanding was in the menu this morning, but neither one of them had expected anything other than that by now, and didn’t discriminate. Xefros glanced about the multitude of black hair with pairs of horns attached to find the ones that belonged to his friends, mildly vexed at their ability to blend seamlessly into the crowd, all with very short horns and no prominent features, when the tetrarch got his attention instead, cutting off his search in favor of sitting with some other trolls by the corner, a couple at a small table by themselves. Xefros squinted at the sight, unsure of who they were. 

“Do you know them?” He asked as the tetrarch led the way. 

“I know one of them, yeah.” 

Once they approached the table, he realized that he knew the other one. 

“Hey, man.” The tetrarch greeted easily, seizing their attention. 

The troll that Xefros didn’t know grinned at their sight. 

“Hey, dude! C’mon, have a seat. This is my moirail, Daraya.” The guy spoke while motioning to the girl across from him with a hand, and watched as both him and the tetrarch took seats in the same row. 

So that was the name of the girl who had helped him yesterday. 

“Hey, Daraya. I’m Dammek, and this is my moirail, Xefros.” 

At that, his heart skipped a beat. The two of them had been moirails for five years now, but the title spoken out loud still brought color to his face, and had his lips curling into a small, badly repressed smile. It felt so good to hear it; he had forgotten how nicely the title sounded on the tetrarch’s lips. 

Sitting across the unnamed troll, and wearing that same blasé expression from yesterday, Daraya offered him a simple, inconspicuous greeting, as if they were meeting here for the very first time. She clearly didn’t want to bring yesterday’s embarrassing events to light, and Xefros could not only respect that, but also appreciate it, immensely so. Expatiating on what had happened was the very last thing that he’d ever want, so he replied to her with an unobtrusive greeting of his own, and cast his eyes down at his food. It was unappealing, as per usual, but, at this point, he was too desensitized to care about cuisine, and shuffled some of the contents of his tray around before eating them. 

Next to him, both the tetrarch and the unnamed troll enthusiastically talked it out between them, seeming to be so on par with each other that, to any passerby, they could’ve been old friends reuniting for breakfast. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, but it still rubbed Xefros the wrong way. This guy chatting the tetrarch up wasn’t a complete stranger, he knew that much; this was the same dude that had been down in the basement with the tetrarch last night, when he showed up there, and who had left a moment later, so the two could be alone. Xefros had barely looked at him then, but would’ve been able to recognize those horn piercings anywhere. He supposed that that was where the two had first met, and made a point to further inquire the tetrarch about it later, because he didn’t believe in friendship at first sight, or closely connected friends after twenty-four hours. That was just weird. 

Across from them, Daraya slid from her place directly in front of her moirail and over to Xefros, sitting across from him now, with tray towed along. Neither one of the talkative two next to him seemed to mind that very much, and he was sure that his was the only heart that ran cold at the sight, because he knew what she wanted with him, and he still didn’t have her answer. 

“So.” She began, making his hairs stand. “Did you think about it?” Her voice was low enough for the other two to only be able to listen in if they ceased their talking entirely, but since they didn’t, it was fair to assume that they weren’t interested in this exchange. 

Xefros kept his eyes down at his food. 

“Not yet.” He answered truthfully. “I’ll have your answer later today, I promise.” 

“What’s the hold up?” 

Absently, his eyes shifted over to the tetrarch sitting at his right. 

“I--”

“This isn’t his business.” She cut him off. 

At that, his wide reds fixed themselves on her face again, now under a light scowl. Of course this was the tetrarch’s business; everything that remotely involved Xefros was the tetrarch’s business. How could she dismiss that so carelessly? She didn’t know the first thing about them, that was clear, and it deepened the crease in his brow. 

“I’ll have your answer later.” He repeated, firmer this time. 

Through Daraya’s laid-back nonchalance, he could see that she wasn’t very pleased with that answer, but would have to deal with it, because he wasn’t changing his mind about this. Her greens squinted, and he noticed that his resolution had gotten through to her, how he simply couldn’t give her a definitive reply without speaking with the tetrarch first. It wasn’t how he worked; the tetrarch knew everything about him, down to the detail, except his innermost feelings and deepest desires, which he couldn’t, for his life, voice out loud. They didn’t come up, got stuck in his throat, and died there, choking him every single time. But he tried not to think about that. The tetrarch knew that he’d give his life for him, and that was good enough. Daraya read that on his face, and resigned; she’d wait for their talk.

On the walk to the bus, Xefros caught a glimpse of Karkat’s face amid the crowd, and remembered yesterday, the fight, how he didn’t know whether or not Dave even remained alive. A sudden, and very compelling urge to apologize came over him, and pushed him to part from the tetrarch’s side with an excuse, only for a moment, he reassured him, on his way to cut through the crowd and sidle up to his friend. He wasn’t sure, objectively, just to what degree he could really be held responsible for yesterday’s events, but he felt within himself that it was most, if not all of it, and approached Karkat with the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was true that he didn’t actually care about Dave, or his safety; barely even liked the guy, to be honest, and Karkat knew that, but he cared about Karkat’s feelings, and their friendship. That was what he wanted to mend with this, if possible. 

He apologized to his best ability while still staying true to himself, fully prepared to see that fall flat, and even half expecting Karkat to get a little physical because of it, maybe shove him into the crowd, maybe push him against a wall, but, to his surprise, the apology worked. Strangely enough, as if by magic, the two of them seemed to be on the same page about this, with Xefros saying that he had no intention of ever laying eyes on Dave again, and Karkat promptly agreeing to that, which felt to be a very unlikely scenario, but that Xefros decided against questioning. He didn’t care to know how, or why they both agreed on this; it worked out in his favor, so he took the deal before Karkat happened to change his mind about it, and followed him out the door. 

As they approached the bus, Xefros had the distinctive feeling that the two of them were growing apart. Karkat had changed, undoubtedly due to Dave’s influence, and the realization drooped Xefros’ shoulders. He was losing Karkat. It was true that last weekend’s events had more than soiled Karkat’s image in his mind and heart, and had ultimately been the cause of his fight with the tetrarch, but he couldn’t make that Karkat’s responsibility alone. Before Dave, Karkat didn’t wander off, and, before Dave, Karkat answered his phone. Karkat texted his friends back. Karkat didn’t disappear for two days straight. For as much as Xefros had blamed the fall out on Karkat, he knew, rationally, that it hadn’t been Karkat’s fault alone. The human played a much more leading role into his demise than he seemed to. But Xefros didn’t care about  _ any _ of that anymore; he and the tetrarch were good again, he and Karkat were good again, and Dave would never look him in the face again, so, all in all, he didn’t have what to worry about. 

He sat down next to the tetrarch. 

“Yeah, he told me about it.” The tetrarch was saying. “That’s how he got that.” He spoke the last part with a pointed nod in Xefros’ direction that had both Sollux and Aradia looking at him in response to it. Caught up in the middle of an ongoing conversation, he wasn’t sure what they meant. 

“Yikes.” Sollux commented, hanging from the back of the tetrarch’s seat. “I bet it looked even worse yesterday.” 

“Trust me, it did.” 

The tetrarch’s rigid tone made it all click, and had Xefros absently touching his own neck. Those bruises must’ve remained, then, despite last night’s full rest submerged in the tetrarch’s recuperacoon. If he had known that beforehand, or noticed it in the mirror this morning, getting dressed, he would’ve worn some sort of jacket, or maybe a borrowed turtleneck to hide the marks. He felt his own face warm up from being thrust under the sudden spotlight in his ridiculousness, and turned to face forward instead, away from his friends. He wished that the tetrarch had pointed that out in the morning, when he had mentioned the healed lip, but that wasn’t the tetrarch’s responsibility. 

“So what’s the next step?” Sollux asked. “Are you killing Dave?”

“No. I introspected, remember? I’m a different person now. Wiser, kinder, who values reason over feeling. I know I said before that I’d kill him, but that was the old me. New me knows better. I’ll let him walk.” 

“Really.” 

Sollux sounded wholly unimpressed, not very likely to have bought the pitch.

“Yes, Sollux. Don’t you realize that, the more we focus on the human, the more we’re letting him control our lives? We’re essentially shaping our days around him, what he does and doesn’t do, what he says or doesn’t say, and how we should react to that, what we should say in return. It’s not worth it. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of our entire philosophy as revolutionary figureheads, and I evolved past it.” The tetrarch’s shades fixed themselves squarely onto the side of Xefros’ face for the next part, making him turn a little bit, the enough to glance back. “We’re not associating with him anymore.”

He nodded his agreement to that. The tetrarch, too, was on this very same page. 

“Alright, you’re right. That’s for the best.” 

Just like that, Sollux was convinced. 

“Are your new friends part of your reawakening?” Aradia added. Her eyes were trained on the pair of pierced horns that sprouted from atop the headrest of an aisle seat several rows up ahead. 

“Yes, an integral part of it.” 

“So you’re replacing us?” 

Sollux sounded hurt. 

“Of course not, bro. People can’t technically be replaced; they just might or might not be missed.” The tetrarch shrugged. 

“You’re such an asshole. You can try to cut me off all you want, but, believe me when I say this, you won’t be able to.” 

“I wouldn’t dare.” 

“Good.” 

In class and in pairs, the tetrarch squinted. Xefros could see it clearly without the shades covering his eyes, forbidden for him, and the rest of the trolls, while in the building. He followed the tetrarch’s line of sight, and fell on the side of Dave’s face, a number of rows ahead, when the guy usually took the very first seat in front of Karkat. Maybe this was the human’s way of showing his disconnect from the rest of the group, and, if so, Xefros appreciated it. The tetrarch wanted to say something about that, the inclination to do so was displayed openly on his face, but he swallowed his thoughts down instead of voicing them for once, and decided to focus onto their assignment. Xefros’ brows raised. It was no secret that the tetrarch was an utterly steadfast man, but seeing him actively fight back against himself put this reform into a new perspective. Maybe he had really meant the whole introspection thing. 

As proof to quell his uncertainty about that, when they left the building for lunch in a stream of lowblood students, Karkat hurriedly cut through them, in the wrong direction, and bolted for the open fields. Both him and the tetrarch watched that with curiosity, stepping out of the stream to observe Karkat run up to his ex-moirail and talk to him. From this distance, Xefros couldn’t see what happened very well, but he noticed that Gamzee hadn’t stopped to speak with Karkat, so the invitation had been a failure. Still, Karkat kept on trying, practically following Gamzee outside of the campus, until they both stopped just a few feet short of the gates, where the altercation got worse, though not physical. The tetrarch watched that with a hard scowl on his face, but didn’t intervene. Karkat eventually left the campus by himself, and Gamzee meandered off in the opposite direction, meaning that their argument was over, and the tetrarch was no longer interested to stand around for it. He took Xefros’ hand and continued to follow the stream leading to the cafeteria. 

Xefros’ heart skipped a beat, but only at the first contact, mellowing out right after as his brain registered this, and very avidly tried not to make it a big deal, because it wasn’t, right? They held hands all the time, except for this last week, but that shouldn’t count due to everything that had happened, all of which had been out of the ordinary, and not the pattern. His point was, he shouldn’t have been feeling so happy from this little thing when something bigger and better had just happened; Dave had shown his disconnect by sitting away from the group this morning, and the tetrarch had retributed that with his own retirement from all matters concerning Karkat, which was incredible. It was progress; true progress. The tetrarch was serious about not involving himself in their business anymore, and could now focus on what actually mattered. Incidentally, seeing as the tetrarch took  _ his _ hand instead of going after Karkat for once, Xefros felt a wicked kind of victory here, from having been chosen over Karkat, even though he knew that that was a stupid thing to think, or feel, but he couldn’t help just how much bigger his heart grew from it. He was beaming. It was totally dumb, shouldn’t even be a thing, should really just make him thoroughly embarrassed, but he was beaming, and the grin on his face proved it. 

At the cafeteria, while joining the very back of the line, he cast an absent glance at the front of it, and had his eyes fall directly onto the back of Daraya’s head; her unmistakable bob cut, and the pointy horns that accompanied it. The sight made his grin drop and his blood run cold. He still didn’t have her answer, shit!, but they had just joined the line, so it would be a while until they could meet up with her at the table, meaning he had time to discuss the delicate issue with the tetrarch right in this exact instant, paces away from the pile of trays up ahead. Perfect. Breathing in, he turned around. 

“Tetrarch.” He started, getting those shiny coppers to lock onto his reds, and trying very hard not to let them swipe him off his feet. “Daraya told me something yesterday that I think you should know.” 

“Yesterday?” The tetrarch cut in, setting his heart off, suddenly. He could feel just how much bigger his eyes had grown from that. 

“No! I meant, this morning.” He corrected himself, breathless.

“Right.” The tetrarch nodded, easy-going and phlegmatic, once again completely free of suspicion. The way that he trusted Xefros so blindly, even though he was acting really weird right now, was touching, but Xefros’ pulse was too loud on his ears for him to be able to focus on that. He shut his eyes and inhaled deeply, holding it in for just one second, one intense second that should bring him back to normalcy, and not last conspicuously long. 

Exhale. He opened his eyes, and stared into the coppers that observed him with an air of detachment about them, careful, but, at the same time, aloof. He didn’t know if the tetrarch had noticed the unproportionate width of his pupils, or the brief, startled squeeze of the hand, and couldn’t really read anything on his face right now, but the tetrarch didn’t say a thing about any of that, simply watching him in silence, so he decided to move on from it. It clearly wasn’t worth dwelling on this, anyway. Drawing in a breath, he continued. 

“She said I should learn to control my psionic powers, because, uh.” A fleeting thought had him stammering through the sentence; the tetrarch didn’t know about the psionic explosion yet, and he wouldn’t be the first to tell, either. He didn’t know a thing about it, and wouldn’t be able to explain anything if the tetrarch happened to question him, so he went for complete ignorance on this one. “Because, I mean, why not, right? It’s, it’s a preemptive measure, I think.” In fact, he was sure.

As he spoke, the tetrarch’s brows raised in delighted surprise. He had covered this up well.

“She’s a psychic, too?” The tetrarch asked.

“I don’t know. Probably.” 

“If she wants to train you, you should do it. You’ll be a big asset for the revolution with your powers nicely wielded.” 

He didn’t think that that was what Daraya had meant when she had made the suggestion, but he’d never turn down such a compliment, and smiled despite the misconception. The tetrarch calling him a big asset was the sort of praise that he never thought he’d live to receive, and it filled his chest with warmth to hear it. 

Pushed far into a lonely corner of the cafeteria, Daraya sat at a table by herself, which naturally made the both of them go over to her and claim two seats across from her, to make her company for the period, no questions asked, or presence approved. She raised an emotionless brow at that, but remained quiet about it, simply accepting the new situation that she had just found herself in instead of trying to fight it. Xefros was about to open his mouth to give her the long awaited answer when the tetrarch cut ahead of him.

“Are you a psychic troll?” 

“No.” She answered, looking at him with her dead green eyes. “Why do you ask?” 

“Because of the talk you had with Xefros. What’s that about?” 

She spared Xefros a brief glance that somehow cut through him, despite not being any different in objective emotion than how she had been staring at the tetrarch this entire time. He knew that he only felt to be judged at the moment because she had told him not to tell the tetrarch about this, even though he had made it clear that he would, regardless, and she knew it. He didn’t regret doing it, but he still felt as if he had failed her, either way. 

“He almost killed a kid with psionics, so I said he should learn to control that. What’s so groundbreaking about it? Sounds to me like a pretty commonplace reaction to have.” 

A crease formed on the tetrarch’s forehead as he turned to fix his coppers on Xefros’ face next, making his wide reds feel three times bigger than usual under the scrutiny. So much for having kept that secret two minutes ago.

“You fought him with your powers? You can barely bend a spoon, Xefros.” 

His heart beat so strongly that he could feel it jumping up at his throat.

“I didn’t, I fought him with my hands.” As he spoke, those same hands trembled. “I, I choked him, and then, then, I didn’t make it happen, it just did. It just, it hurt, then Dave was choking me next.” 

“See what I tell you?” Daraya added, gathering the tetrarch’s eyes onto herself. For that half second, Xefros could breathe again. “He needs to learn how to channel that correctly.” 

“You’ll teach him?” 

“No, idiot; I’m not a psychic, I just told you that, but I know someone who might be up for the test.” 

A loud sound interrupted their conversation, making Xefros jump, and everybody else turn to look at Sollux with his tray slammed down onto their table. He had a wide and mischievous grin on his face pointed at the lot of them as he took the seat directly next to the tetrarch, and Aradia, standing idly a few feet behind, walked closer. The look on her face, as it usually was when the situation involved one of Sollux’s antics, was unimpressive. 

“Hey, assholes.” Sollux began, sounding cheeky. “Think you can ditch us for lunch so easily? Well, think again, motherfuckers. Here we are.” He motioned at himself with both hands, spreading his arms, and only then seemed to notice that his moirail wasn’t seated yet. Turning around to eye her, he urged her to follow suit, which she did with a muted sigh and a repressed eye roll.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered to the table while sitting across from her moirail. 

“Sollux is a psychic, too.” The tetrarch commented, paying that grandiose entrance no mind, and, instead, taking it in stride. 

“Yes, I see the bracelet.” Daraya continued. 

“Were you two talking about me?” 

“No, but we are now. Daraya knows someone who can teach you psionic control.” 

“What do you mean, teach me? I know a lot already. I don’t need a teacher for this. I haven’t taken these pills in a year.” Sollux motioned to the small cup on his tray, which every psychic troll got while in line for their meal, checked one by one by an official that worked at the canteen. Xefros had the habit of taking them while still in line, and had already downed his for this period, feeling a little stupid now. 

At Sollux’s fanfaronade, Daraya raised a nonchalant brow. 

“You remind me of a friend that I have.” She said. “You two should talk sometime, even if they can’t teach you anything. Who knows, you might just end up coaching each other.” 

Sollux’s eyes slitted at that, but he didn’t refuse the proposition immediately. He seemed very unwilling to consider it, even, but, knowing him, he’d probably change his mind about it within the second.

“Alright.” All suspicion in his voice from a mere moment ago was gone now, and he sounded perfectly okay with the idea, just as anticipated. “Sounds awesome.” 

Daraya promised that she’d get a hold of her friend after class today, and would introduce them to the group before dinner. 

Xefros worried about that in class. He knew that he’d make a fool of himself in front of Daraya’s friend no matter what, because his grasp on psionics was absolutely minimal, but he was hoping that his connection to Sollux would compensate that a little bit, or more than not at all. In the very least, even if he did end up looking bad, he’d still get some helpful tips to remotely begin to practice seizing control of his powers, and that was what he looked forward to this evening. He reached for the tetrarch’s hand, found that he was holding a book with that one, and settled for grabbing onto his wrist instead. He just needed to feel the tetrarch’s presence at his side for emotional reassurance; it hadn’t even been a conscious thing. The tetrarch noticed that, and switched the book to his other hand. 

“You’re still reading that?” He asked in a whisper as not to disrupt the lecture. 

“No, this is another one. I finished the first one last Sunday and returned it. Did you want to read it? Because I can get it back for you.” 

“No, I was just asking. The Nurse gave you another one?” 

“No, this is Mallek’s. He lent it to me for a while.” 

Xefros squinted with his focus, trying to remember who that was. The name sounded very strange to him, and he wasn’t sure that he had ever heard it before. 

“He was sitting at our table for breakfast.” The tetrarch clarified, seeing the struggle displayed on his face. 

Right, pierced horns. 

“Oh.” He deadpanned. Something inside of him had a reaction to that bit of information, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was exactly, or what it meant. “How did you meet him?” He had been meaning to ask this since breakfast, even though he was pretty confident in his ability to predict the tetrarch’s answer. 

“The Nurse introduced us.” Oh, okay. He didn’t know  _ that. _ “I went down there to talk to her last Sunday, but she wasn’t having it. You know, during my cleanse? Whatever; Mallek made better company than she ever would.” 

Xefros nodded slowly, thinking back to that day, and how the tetrarch had met one end of that moirallegiance while he had met the other. Briefly, he wondered if that had really been a coincidence. The fact that Daraya knew the tetrarch by name way before the two of them had been properly introduced via her moirail was suspicious, and made Xefros start to believe otherwise. Before, he had thought that she knew the tetrarch because of his teachings and the meetings, but, now, he wasn’t so sure about that anymore. 

“Are we really from outer space?” He asked. 

The tetrarch looked up from the book and seemed to ponder the question for a moment. He had been going on and on about this just last week, and how long ago that felt now, after everything that had happened to disrupt the harmony between them. Xefros felt the bumps of the tetrarch’s knuckles as he thought his answer over. 

“Yes.” The tetrarch finally said. “But don’t tell anyone.” 

Xefros nodded his solemnity to that. Of course he wouldn’t tell, even if he had someone to tell it to; he wasn’t dense, and knew that that kind of information rendered everything that they had been taught in school about their species as lies, unearthing a much bigger question with it, a conspiracy, a search for the truth. If they had come from another planet, then they didn’t belong here. The humans hadn’t created them, and had no right to claim their existence. That alone was enough evidence to begin a revolution. 

“Is that going to be the subject of this week’s meeting?” 

“No, Xefros. This is serious. We can’t hold meetings anymore.” 

“Why not?” 

“There’s something bigger to look forward to now, something that’s actually important, and we can’t waste time fucking around with a bunch of kids. That’s what the meetings were.” 

“What’s this big thing?” 

“I can’t tell you about it yet.” 

He scowled. Naturally, he wouldn’t question the tetrarch in his choice to not tell him about such a monumentally influential happening, but, at the same time, it hurt to be excluded from it. Of course the tetrarch was right not to tell him, and he understood that, but the pang in his chest still couldn’t be helped. He sunk a nail into the knuckles that his palm cradled. 

“You heard about it last Sunday, right?” 

It only made sense. 

“Yes, but it’s not in my power to discuss it. You understand.” 

“Is Mallek involved?” 

The tetrarch gave him a sidelong glance. 

“Don’t pull it out of me, Xefros.” 

He shut his mouth. He already had all of the information that he needed, anyway, and hated Mallek for it. The Nurse, he wasn’t sure, might’ve been involved to a certain degree, or maybe she had nothing to do with it; he sincerely didn’t know, but held her semi-accountable regardless, if not for being the link that seemed to have brought the tetrarch to Mallek, intentionally or not. Turning to face the lecture, he sat back on his chair. Mallek was going to be a problem. 

As the residents of 27-A filed into the building after class, and occupied the better portion of the lobby with walking obstacles and standing decoration, a voice reached them, a shout of the tetrarch’s name to get his attention. It was loud enough to not only succeed in that, but also have Xefros, Sollux, and Aradia glancing in its direction, their eyes falling onto Mallek’s tall frame beckoning them over, or, more specifically, the tetrarch over. They all followed; Xefros snatched the tetrarch’s sleeve on the way, holding onto it. He’d maintain his composure for this, he told himself, thinking of the book in the tetrarch’s bag, and the concealed subject in the tetrarch’s mind. It was all Mallek’s fault, and it burned his insides, but he’d remain courteous with the guy to please the tetrarch. He had to show rationality. 

Despite the fact that Mallek had called them over, it was Daraya who greeted them, standing beside a troll that Xefros had seen around the building before, and heard of in hushed tones, but never actually talked to. 

“Guys, this is the friend I was telling you about; Cirava.” Daraya said, presenting her friend with a hand, then moving to motion at both Xefros and Sollux next. “These are the two I mentioned before.” 

As far as rumors went, Cirava was the outcast that no one talked to, or hanged around too much, or even looked at for too long, and it wasn’t because of the eyepatch. Some trolls were fascinated by the streaks of golden blood that emerged from underneath concealment, coloring the cracks on half of Cirava’s face as if the remaining shards of a broken mirror, where the eyepatch covered the central blow that had shattered it, while simultaneously feeling uneasy by the unnatural color of the one visible eye, a light green with no discernible pupil that tinted the entire orb, perpetually half-covered by the lazy eyelid. They only seemed to have one eyebrow, as well as a wide, and lazy grin that said nothing about their personality. No one had a single idea of who this really was. 

“Hello.” Cirava greeted them around the grin, holding up a hand to wave with. “Who’s the third person?” 

It was impossible to know where Cirava was looking at, if they could even see at all, or who they meant by third person, because the group that had just arrived was of four. At the question, Xefros saw his friends all spare each other confused glances. 

“We have four people with us.” Daraya explained. “Xefros and Sollux, the ones I told you about, and their respective moirails, Dammek and Aradia.” 

“Ah, two for the price of one. Someone is a mountain, and someone is a blade of grass. Which is which?” 

It might’ve been complete self-absorption, but Xefros had a feeling that Cirava’s strange and softly eerie words referred to himself and the tetrarch, who stood closely beside him, and was easily a foot taller than he was. Out of all of the lowbloods that Xefros talked to, the tetrarch happened to be the tallest and broadest of them all, comparable to highbloods like Eridan, and, unfortunately, Mallek. The only lowblood who almost challenged the tetrarch’s height was Aradia, but she was nowhere near his width, with very slim shoulders and thin arms. 

“Can I be the mountain?” Sollux asked. 

His question put a genuine grin on Cirava’s face, rounding one of their cheeks, while the other remained paralyzed with the rest of the shattered mirror. That made Xefros start paying attention to how they talked, and how only half of their lips moved, despite their jaw seeming to have no problem shifting underneath the shards. The sight made his skin crawl, but the lopsided grin in itself was endearing; the aversion that he felt toward Cirava was mixed in with fondness, rendering him unsure how to feel about them overall. The Gemini symbol across their chest explained everything. 

“Unfortunately, you’re not the mountain.” Cirava told Sollux. “I know that for sure.” 

“I don’t think that matters.” The tetrarch cut in, making Cirava’s half-grin drop, and their head turn to face him, not to stare into his eye, but to hold the light green orb in his general direction. Cirava would’ve needed to raise their chin to stare into the tetrarch’s face, but they didn’t do that, and Xefros no longer questioned their blindness. “You’re the one who’s going to train them, right?” 

“Yes.” Cirava answered, their voice sounding like a whisper. “Which one are you?” 

“Dammek.” 

“Dammek…!” Their visible brow lifted. “You’re the mountain.” 

“Aw, dammit.” Sollux muttered. 

The tetrarch scowled. 

“What does that mean?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” Daraya cut in. “Let’s discuss the meeting over dinner.” 

Xefros didn’t know why she cared about that so much, but didn’t question it as they all started for the canteen doors together, with Cirava holding onto the studded bracelet on their friend’s wrist. In between spoonfuls of grubsteak and tuber paste, it was arranged that Cirava was to speak with both Sollux and Xefros privately, up in their room, in order to gauge their respective potentials, and how well they could handle themselves. Sollux made a point to let it be widely known that he knew exactly what he was doing with his psionics, to which Cirava gave a lopsided grin, and refrained from commenting otherwise. Xefros kept quiet the entire time, trying not to draw too much attention onto himself, lest the whole table should end up knowing of his pathetic lack of development in regards to that. Cirava knew right away that Sollux was a fellow Gemini, and decided to bond over that for most of their meal while Daraya explained to the rest of them that the idea was for her friend, who had some considerable knowledge on the matter, to help guide the other two safely through the instigation of their powers. Cirava knew the path to ruin, and could help them avoid it. As Daraya said the last part, Xefros caught himself staring at Cirava’s eyepatch. 

“I suppose this is going to be a regular thing, the encounters.” The tetrarch said after dinner, while the table dismantled, and the lot of them started for the exit. 

“Yes, that’s the plan.” 

“Then we should create a schedule for it. How many times a week, and during which hours, so we can program ourselves.” 

Daraya shrugged. 

“I’ll let Cirava decide. It all depends on today’s diagnosis.” 

“Right.” The tetrarch agreed. “Of course.” 

“Sollux and Xefros, please follow.” Cirava spoke while already breaking off from the group, and heading for the elevators, unaccompanied by their friend’s presence, or anyone else. 

Xefros passed the tetrarch a quick glance before letting go of his hand. He knew this would only take a few hours, or maybe even less than that, but it still broke his heart to part from the tetrarch, especially when he knew that he’d be stepping into unknown and very uncomfortable territory, and that the tetrarch’s presence would’ve made him feel a lot more confident about it, but it’d be fine. Rationally, he knew it’d be fine, and followed Sollux over to Cirava, who waited for them by the elevators. 

As Xefros crossed the lobby toward them, Cirava’s one brow moved in a straight line, creasing the skin there, on their forehead. They were scowling. 

“Xefros?” 

His name left Cirava’s lips as if barely there at all. 

“Yes? That’s me.” 

At his response, the eyebrow lifted, just in time with the elevator’s chime. 

_ “You’re _ the mountain.” 


	8. Exertion and side-effects

“Can you tell me what that means?”

The elevator was absolutely deserted save for the three of them as it rose up to the fourth floor. Cirava was a bit shorter than him, and seemed to stare at his nose during the ride, even though Xefros knew by know that they couldn’t actually see, despite how well, and how accurately they seemed to feel their surroundings. He wondered if that had always been within them, or if they had acquired it with the apparent loss of an eye.

“I’d also like to know, and, more importantly, why it isn’t me.” Sollux added.

“It means… It means…”

The elevator chimed again, indicating their stop, and cutting Cirava off. They turned toward the doors as they slid open.

“Please be quiet for this next part. I need to concentrate.”

“Okay.” They both responded in unison.

Silently, the two of them followed Cirava out onto the landing, over to the hallway on the right, and down seven doors to their room, remaining mute all the while.

“Four thirty-six.” Cirava told them, standing in front of the corresponding door with keys in hand.

“Can we talk now?” Sollux asked.

“Yes.”

“Were you counting your steps or something?”

“Yes.”

“Damn.”

“I don’t mind it.” Cirava spoke while pushing the door open and walking in ahead. “It’s kind of fun.”

“Yeah, I don’t buy that for a second, but go off.”

Cirava’s room wasn’t that much different than everybody else’s. Xefros knew for a fact that goldbloods didn’t have roommates, so a bunk was off the question, and every room only had two pieces of furniture besides that, a wardrobe and a dresser, except Cirava only had the dresser. He tried to remember if Sollux, too, only had one of those, but couldn’t. The last time that he had been to Sollux’s room had been with the tetrarch, last week, in a frenzied search for Karkat; suffice to say that his focus that day hadn’t been on the furniture of Sollux’s room, but, if he had to guess, each troll was probably appointed to a sort of storage, and his room only had both because of his roommate.

Cirava took a seat in the middle of the room, and had the both of them do the same. They faced Sollux first.

“You said you have outstanding control over your powers, so why don’t you lift that dresser over there?” They spoke with an outstretched arm for visual aid.

Sollux glanced at the dresser, knit his eyebrows together, and lifted it in mid-air without as much as a sound, or too apparent of an effort. Xefros watched that with a wave of hopelessness washing over him. The dresser clearly wasn’t in Cirava’s field of vision, floating almost behind them, and they didn’t turn to look at it, which Xefros took as further evidence of their blindness. Sollux placed the dresser back down with a soft sound that made Cirava nod.

“Good. What else can you do?”

“I could probably lift this whole building, if I wanted to.”

“That’s great, Sollux, but I mean in psychic diversity. What else can you wield besides telekinesis?”

“Uh. I don’t think I’ve ever tried anything else.”

“Have you ever felt a force so powerful that it swallows you completely, and burns through your body as if your bones were being ripped away one by one and your eyes no longer existed?”

A chill ran down Xefros’ spine. He hadn’t experienced all of those symptoms together, of course, but what Cirava described reminded him a lot of what had happened to him yesterday, especially the first few descriptions, and rounded his eyes about three sizes bigger than usual. His heart raced, suddenly, and his hands began to sweat. Sitting beside him, Sollux frowned.

“No, not like that. I get migraines sometimes, but I don’t think it’s the same thing.”

“Good.” Cirava nodded, then turned to face Xefros next. “You’ve felt that before, haven’t you?”

He could hear his pulse loud on his ears.

“Not all of it, just the first part.”

“What happened?” Sollux cut in.

“Sollux, please.” Cirava intervened. “It’s his turn now.”

“Sorry.”

“Can you lift that dresser, Xefros?”

The question put color to his cheeks. With the whole talk about yesterday’s incident, he was hoping that Cirava would’ve focused on that instead of bringing back the telekinesis stuff that he was really pathetically bad at, but he supposed that that wouldn’t be the case. On second thought, that wasn’t even realistic to have hoped for, and he was stupid. His heart skipped a beat from the nervousness.

“I guess I could try.”

This was going to be an embarrassing mistake, but he supposed that he couldn’t well avoid it. He knew, coming in here, that this was going to happen, so, really, the chagrin that filled his chest because of the question should’ve been expected. Fixing both eyes on the dresser, he channeled his focus, much alike how he used to do to spoons in the past to get a cheer out of the tetrarch, or just put a smile on his face, and pushed himself. If spoons were almost impossible to bend already, he supposed that moving a whole dresser would take even more out of him, so he really forced it. His brows furrowed, his face reddened, and his head hurt almost immediately; his hands cradled his temples as an instinctive response to that. His body was trembling and he couldn’t really breathe, but he didn’t break his focus. He knew that he still had a ways to trance, and wouldn’t give up right away.

The headache was turning into a migraine.

A full minute later and the dresser still hadn’t moved. He was trying so hard and still had achieved nothing, fuck!, that was so embarrassing. He exhaled very deeply and tried not to let that get to him. His head was about to split open, he could feel it, but still pushed it further. His eyes shut, his hands trembled; the air was filled with static and his ears could barely hear the voice that spoke to him.

“Stop it.” Sollux said, shoving him hard with a hand. That immediately broke his focus and pulled him back from his near trance. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

He breathed in, deeply, and the world darkened around the edges, dropping him heavily onto his back, boneless. He could see blood clots peppering his vision, coming and going, swimming across his eyes as the world began to disappear behind his retinas, like an eclipse with open eyelids. His blood pressure had dropped from all of that, and he was about to fall unconscious, he could feel it. It was close. Muffled voices echoed in the distance, but he couldn’t really hear them, feeling as if his ears had been stuffed with cotton, and his head stuffed in a plastic bag. He blinked slowly; his skull pounded so strongly that he could feel his scalp shake with it, and a shiver run down his spine. He hadn’t done this in a while.

Usually, when he did this to show off to the tetrarch, he passed out immediately after, but, this time, he didn’t, and he knew it was only because Sollux had stopped him halfway there. He remained strewn across Cirava’s bedroom floor for a while longer, just until the world lit up again, re-emerging from behind his very eyes, and the blood clots dissipated from his vision. His pressure slowly raised back to normalcy, bringing a shiver along with it, and his hands to push him up into a sitting position on shaky arms. Both Sollux and Cirava stared very intently at him, even though that wasn’t what Cirava was actually doing, only making him feel it. His head pounded still.

“I respect your determination, but don’t let that be your downfall.” Cirava said, their voice calm and soft. “What happened yesterday didn’t leave you with any physical side-effects, did it?”

Through the merciless aching of his head, he was about to ask what Cirava meant by that, but, as his eyes fell onto the shattered mirror pattern on the troll’s face, the question died. He knew exactly what they meant.

“No, not that I noticed.”

The tetrarch, more than anyone, and even himself, would’ve noticed the first difference on him, so he was sure about his answer.

“Good. I can help you with the telekinesis, if you want.”

“Thank you.”

“What about me?” Sollux interrupted.

“I think you should try branching out, Sollux. You’ve got a nice hold of your telekinesis already, so why not try something different?”

“Like what?”

Cirava shrugged.

“There are a lot of trolls with different mind powers out there. Maybe talk to them about it.”

“Do you know anyone I can start with?”

“Mallek knows mind control.”

That revelation hit Xefros harder than a lightning bolt to the horns, shaking him to the very core, and setting his heart loose to rampage. Of course Mallek had mind control powers, that explained everything, and was very common among apatitebloods, too. How hadn’t he connected the dots before? This made perfect sense. That asshole was manipulating the tetrarch with lies that had to remain concealed from him, and the rest of the world, as not to have Mallek’s disgusting stunt uncovered by the masses, but Xefros had gotten him now. He could expose him. He could prevent the tetrarch from slipping away.

“By order of elimination, I take it that you mean the piercings guy.” Sollux continued.

“Yes. I might be able to appoint you to somebody else, depending on how your talk with him goes, but I can’t promise anything.”

Sollux raised a brow.

“Maybe I don’t actually want to do that.”

Cirava shrugged again, still wearing that lazy, perpetual grin on their face.

“That’s up to you.”

“Can I ask what happened to your eye?”

Xefros’ heart skipped a beat; Sollux was such a careless man. Didn’t he realize that the two of them were only here because of Cirava’s goodwill? A question like that was too personal to be directed at someone that they barely knew, and had a debt with. Xefros wanted to apologize for him, but decided against speaking out of turn.

Cirava, however, remained unchanged. They seemed to not have been affected by that at all.

“You can ask, but you know the answer already. This is what happens when you’re careless, Sollux. When you’re pushed too far.”

Slowly, Sollux nodded.

“Right. I take it you’re blind, as well.”

“Technically, yes, but when you’ve been through what I’ve been through, you realize that’s beneficial. I don’t need sight to know exactly who you are, or what you’re going to become.” For the next part, Cirava turned to face Xefros directly, now without the lazy grin displayed across their face. “Please be careful.”

A shiver ran through him.

“Okay.”

The word slipped from his lips out of reflex, but he didn’t actually know what he had just agreed to be careful about. Deep inside, he knew that Cirava must’ve alluded to the events of yesterday, but a part of him refused to believe it, better inclined to believe that something horrible awaited him in the future, or, worse yet, was encased in his potential. Maybe Cirava meant for him to be mindful of himself rather than anything out of his reach, and that was what scared him the most. Swallowing thickly, he decided that he didn’t want to be here anymore. All of these creepy prophecies were weirding him out and making him anxious, and, right now, he just wanted the tetrarch. He just wanted to hold his hand again.

“I have to go.” He said, voice trembling as he got up from the floor on weak legs. “Thank you for everything, Cirava. You’re really great.”

“You’re Dammek’s moirail, right?”

His heart leapt, his hands shook.

“Yes.”

“He wants a schedule for our meetings, I heard him saying, so we should probably speak with him soon. Maybe tomorrow morning, over breakfast.”

“Sure, yeah. Yeah. See you then.”

He ran out faster than his mind could store that information, practically down the hallway by the time Cirava probably bid him a lost goodbye, and two flights down when his brain flicked back to life, all of a sudden, scaring him with it. Panting from his anxiety and how fast he was zipping down the stairs, it hit him just how rude he must’ve sounded a minute ago, literally running away from the one troll who could help him get over himself. He was such a fucking idiot, weird and tactless, not to mention utterly fucking incompetent, too; couldn’t even lift a dresser from the floor, something that Sollux had done with no effort whatsoever, overshadowing him completely. This evening had been bound for failure, sure, and he had been well aware of that going into it; he just hadn’t realized that it’d be his own personal failure and self-exposure. He had forgotten to account for his own stupidity, and knack for destroying his own public image like a Goddamn idiot.

Down on the first floor, after the very last step, he stopped by the stairway shaft with a hand pressed to the wall for support and heaved hard, through gasping breaths of air, already seeing black at the edges because he didn’t fucking work out anymore. He was such an idiot. His lungs hurt, his eyes shut, and he coughed grossly. Idiot. He didn’t even want to know what Cirava thought of him now, or what they had in storage for him, because he was too ashamed to go back and see them again. After he almost passed out on their bedroom floor without achieving anything and ran out, he couldn’t just look them in the eye again, pretending that that hadn’t happened. It’d haunt him for a while, and he wasn’t okay with it, but he’d have to be. He had brought it upon himself, after all. What a massive dumbass. Sniffling a little, he wiped at his eyes. He’d have to make it all okay again.

He wanted to tell the tetrarch about this. Maybe sharing the experience would make it less burdensome to think about. He left the stairway shaft, entered the lobby, and realized that he didn’t actually know where the tetrarch was. Pulling his phone out for a text, he suddenly heard him, and his entire body stilled, ears perked; the tetrarch’s low, smooth voice had come from outside. The building doors were still open at this hour, since it wasn’t very late yet, and, in a sort of hypnosis, he walked through them, stopping at the small porch to listen again. Other voices tried to distract him from his goal, and muffle the tetrarch out in his mind, but he didn’t let them; remaining put, he focused, and heard a laugh. The tetrarch, laughing? It had come from behind the building, so he climbed down the steps and followed it, around the corner, across the backyard.

There was a big tree right in the middle of the backyard that was almost as tall as the building itself, surrounded by smaller trees and flower bushes, where he could not only see the tetrarch, but most of his friends, as well, running laps around it, and expertly vaulting over the bushes. Standing still, he watched them from a distance. Daraya took the lead, running far up ahead with the tetrarch right on her tail, while Mallek seemed to jog leisurely instead, more interested to chat Aradia up than beat the other two to the game. Aradia was the only one who wasn’t running, but sitting down on a patch of grass, leaning back on her hands to watch them. She paid Mallek little attention; her vacant reds seemed to be trained onto the running duo instead.

After a long moment of recollection, Xefros decided to approach with small steps and a general sense of reserve. He walked over slowly, unobtrusively, and only had Aradia notice him at first, her lifeless eyes staring at him in silence from where she sat. Her quiet attention was a welcome contrast to the high energy shouting and laughing that came from the tree and the makeshift track around it. Under her gaze, Xefros approached the lot of them, and took a seat on the patch of grass next to her. He didn’t really feel real. The world seemed to have spun without him a few times, and he was only now hopping back onto it, to find his reality a slightly changed one. It was as if his body had disconnected all feeling from a moment ago, running down the stairs, and killed it, but his brain couldn’t erase the memories, and his heart still wanted to talk about it. His own existence felt so contradicting that, for a moment, he forgot what he was doing here.

“You look ghastly.” Aradia commented in her soft, quiet voice. It reached him in a whisper.

“Thanks.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

It took the tetrarch a quarter of a lap to emerge from behind the tree and spot him sitting on the grass a ways away from the track. The aviators locked onto his face almost immediately, the tetrarch’s running stance faltered, and the distance between him and Daraya multiplied within the instant. Xefros felt his own eyes widen as the tetrarch dismissed the competition entirely, and moved to jog over to him instead. Despite how strangely he felt at the moment, his heart still beat stronger at the dashing grin that graced the tetrarch’s face on the way over. He was almost too entranced by the warmth in his chest to fully process the fact that he had caused it; the tetrarch was grinning at him _because_ of him, and nothing, or nobody else. That was too much.

“Hey.” The tetrarch greeted easily, breathless, as the jogging stopped right in front of him. “Is the meeting over?”

On any other day, Xefros knew that he would’ve been wide-eyed at the rare sight that stood before him; without the hoodie on, and mantled in a thin layer of sweat, the tetrarch had the shirt that covered him taut across his chest, nearly ripping at the sleeves that hugged his biceps, and making it very easy for Xefros to remember last night, but he wasn’t really focusing on that kind of burning at the moment. In fact, he couldn’t very well focus on anything. He knew by experience that that would’ve been more than enough to leave him speechless, too embarrassed by his own self to really say anything in response to it, but, right now, he was still drowning in self-pity and low self-esteem because of the fiasco from earlier, and couldn’t get his mind off of that, despite how see-through the tetrarch’s shirt looked when drenched in his sweat. He knew it was bad when the tetrarch’s muscles failed to get his undivided attention.

“Yeah.” He answered, feeling his chest cave into itself. The meeting had been an absolute shit-show, he wanted to say, but didn’t have the energy to.

“Dammek, you’re losing.” Mallek called from a few feet away. Normally, his voice would’ve lit Xefros’ insides on fire, but he was a pile of ash at the moment, and only had his breathing come in shorter from that. The world weighed his shoulders down.

The tetrarch turned very briefly at the mention of his name, sparing his friend a half-glance thrown over the shoulder before proceeding to ignore the guy completely. From a short distance, Mallek snorted out a laugh.

“How was it?” The tetrarch asked him.

“Fine.”

He didn’t want to be here, he realized. He wanted to be up in his room weeping in silence, not down here surrounded by smiles and bustling energy. Before him, the tetrarch’s brows furrowed in a look, and he knew far too well what that meant; the tetrarch wasn’t buying his bullshit, but it wasn’t as if he were trying very hard to hide it from him, either. He wanted to talk about it still, but he also, kind of, didn’t anymore. Not here, anyway. He got up from the spot next to Aradia and brought the tetrarch’s hoodie along, previously thrown onto a pile with Mallek’s and Daraya’s jacket and coats; Xefros didn’t care. He pushed the hoodie onto the tetrarch’s chest.

“I don’t feel good.” He admitted, and, yeah, maybe he cared. Maybe he cared a little bit. “I’m gonna go.”

The tetrarch took the hoodie with no mention of the unnecessary strength that he had used to shove it.

“Do you want me to come along?”

Wordlessly, he nodded, starting off for the building.

The walk back was shrouded in silence, from the moment that they had left, all across the backyard, and into the lobby, where some voices echoed, and sparse residents walked to and fro according to their own personal business. The both of them still didn’t talk in here, and simply made each other company while crossing it toward the stairway shaft. It was only a half flight up with the fire exit door closed behind the two of them that the tetrarch finally broke the silence.

“What happened?” His voice was silky smooth and considerably small, trying to be gentle with the words as not to rub Xefros the wrong way, and Xefros appreciated that, not that the tetrarch could ever really rub him the wrong way in the first place, but it was the sentiment that mattered. In the quietness of the stairway shaft, the tetrarch’s baritone almost echoed off the walls.

He shook his head. His chest was still too constricted to breathe right, and his throat was starting to close now, too. Telltale signs of impending embarrassment.

“I messed up, dude.” He confessed, voice small, feeling the hard crease on his forehead. “Cirava kept saying all of this weird stuff about being careful and what happened yesterday and I couldn’t even lift the dresser.”

“What dresser?”

“I felt so dumb in there.” He barreled on. “They both know what they’re doing, and are really good, too, but I don’t know anything. I can’t do anything, and I almost lost an eye or something, I don’t even know. I don’t know how that happened, or what I did, but Cirava didn’t like it. It wasn’t good, it was really bad, and I was _fucking_ stupid to do it.”

“Xefros, hey.”

“I’m so _fucking_ dumb, dude.”

With a firm hand on his shoulder, the tetrarch stopped him. The sign on the wall said that they were on the second floor, but the tetrarch soon covered it with his chest, stepping in front of Xefros to get him to look up. Xefros did so, voluntarily, and had his face cupped in both of the tetrarch’s hands, with thumbs brushing his cheeks, and palms warming up his neck. His throat still hurt from yesterday, and even more now that he was on the brink of tears, staring up at the tetrarch through a watery haze, but the palms that touched it felt Heavenly.

“Xefros, don’t say that.”

He could see the scowl through the aviators.

“You know that’s not true, and you’re beating yourself up unjustly. Cirava and Sollux only have a better hold of their powers because they’ve practiced while you haven’t; that doesn’t mean they’re better than you, it’s an opportunity to improve yourself, and if you think they didn’t fuck up on the way there, you’re sorely mistaken.”

He parted his lips to retort, but swallowed his words instead. Logically, he knew that the tetrarch was right, even if it didn’t feel that way, and anything that he wanted to argue about would just hand the cause to the tetrarch on a silver platter instead. Casting his eyes down, he caught a glimpse of the tears that escaped him.

“You’re right, but I feel really bad. I feel awful.”

“What did Cirava say about yesterday?”

The thumbs on his cheeks wiped them clean.

“That it was dangerous and I should be careful. I think I could’ve turned into them.”

“What?”

“Lost an eye or whatever, you know? They were being really cryptic about it; it freaked me out.”

The hold on his face loosened, and one of the hands moved to brush some of his hair back, card fingers through it in an affectionate gesture. He loved when the tetrarch did that.

“Xefros, you’re okay.” The tetrarch’s voice was softer now, making his heart beat stronger as the fingertips on his forehead drew his bangs to the side. “Your eyes are both still here and your face is still perfect; the most that yesterday…” Wait, perfect? Did the tetrarch say perfect? The tetrarch just called him perfect. “... Did to you was let Dave hurt you, which was out of your control, and will never happen again. You obviously have a lot of potential, but that’s why Cirava is going to coach you, so you don’t have to be scared of yourself.”

The tetrarch said that his _face_ was perfect, yeah, but he was pretty sure that that also meant everything else about him, right?, unless his face was really his only redeemable quality, in which case he should seriously start worrying about his height, and weight, but didn’t the tetrarch say before that he liked…

“Xefros?”

His eyes snapped up to meet with the aviators that watched him.

“What?”

There was a scowl on the tetrarch’s forehead, showing just behind the rim of the shades, that he would’ve been able to read very easily now had his thoughts not been completely overwritten with the fact that the tetrarch had just attributed the word perfect to a part of him, and he wasn’t sure whether or not he should take that at face value instead of claiming it wholly, in a more general sense, to his own entire existence.

“C’mon, let’s go upstairs.”

The tetrarch let go of his face to stand next to him, sliding an arm across his shoulders to pull him close under the wing, a tight hold that had their sides pressed together and Xefros’ hand instinctively reaching for the tetrarch’s back, grabbing onto his shirt for balance. Right now, he didn’t care that the tetrarch was all sweaty, or that, without the hoodie on, his body was so enticing, pressed up against him like this; all he could think about was… 

“Perfect? You said, you said perfect, right? But, like, what did you mean?”

Behind the shades, the tetrarch gave him a look. His fangs were an inch away from Xefros’ lips.

“Is that what you took from everything that I said?”

“You meant my face.” He blurted out in a sort of rushed realization, feeling cold all of a sudden. His hard-working mind drew a complete blank with that.

“Xefros, are you good?”

He shook his head, mentally absent for a moment. It seemed as if his brain had just short circuited.

“I don’t know.”

From this angle, he could see the squint on the tetrarch’s face, but, in this headspace, he couldn’t register it. It passed by his eyes without making an impression.

“You might’ve pushed yourself a little too much trying to lift that dresser. Take it easy, okay?”

“Okay.”

He didn’t know what he was agreeing to.


	9. Slippery slope

All of the mental scrambling that had happened the night before was completely gone in the morning, which he was deeply grateful for, because that had been the most disorienting experience of his life. He didn’t have the greatest, most powerful, or even smartest brain around, yeah, he knew that, as did everybody else, big deal, but last night had been a fiasco beyond his wildest nightmares. About half of what had happened after his encounter with Cirava was lost on him, and the other half was peppered with sentiment to fill in the gaps of his memory. For example, he remembered the tree in the backyard, a lot of noise, the tetrarch’s pectorals, feeling warm inside, and the word perfect, which, as he recalled, allowed for a blush to creep up to his face and stain all across his nose. One full night’s rest later, and he was still hung up on that one little thing that had marked him so deeply for some reason. The tetrarch complimented him from time to time, so it wasn’t as if he had never heard something like that before, but it had never been exactly that, either, and he knew that, logically, he shouldn’t be thinking about this so much, or attributing so much value to it, when it hadn’t even been said as something special in the first place. It could’ve been a placeholder, for all he knew; the tetrarch had only used it to make a point or another, anyway. It might’ve meant nothing. 

He didn’t ask the tetrarch about it this morning, and hoped that it would soon fade away from his mind, or at least from the forefront of it, so he could focus on something else. 

For breakfast, they had to snatch up one of the few big tables of the canteen that was able to comfortably fit eight people, since both Eridan and Cirava decided to join them this morning, which wasn’t a problem at all; Cirava was a good, wise person, and Eridan, well. He was Sollux’s kismesis, so. Part of the group, he guessed. Eridan wasn’t the worst of his problems.

“You’re Vriska’s friend.” Daraya said to Eridan as he took the empty seat beside her. As far as Xefros knew, these two had never talked before, and, judging by the look on Eridan’s face at her approach, that judgement was correct. 

“How do you know that?” Eridan asked, leaning away from her. The wording of choice emphasized his strange accent. 

“Elwurd told me.” 

“Oh, glob, you know Elwurd?” 

“Who’s that?” Sollux cut in, sitting in between his two quadrants. 

“No one.” 

“A bitch.” 

The two replies were spoken over one another, but Xefros was sure that Sollux didn’t have a problem hearing both simultaneously. 

“She’ll be ecstatic to know you called her that.” Eridan commented with his eyes down at his own plate, cast in mild disgust. He had eaten here before, but the food’s questionable quality still seemed to give him trouble. 

“Oh, she knows.” 

“And  _ you?” _ Eridan’s eyes lifted to stare at Mallek next, who was already engaged in conversation with the tetrarch, and didn’t seem to have heard him. If Xefros currently sat in a pyre lit by the fire that burst from inside of him because of that, then that was unimportant at the moment. 

“What about him?” Daraya interposed. 

“What’s  _ he _ doing here?” 

Xefros was about to open his mouth to ask the seadweller if he knew Mallek, too, but, before he could let that kind of stupidity out, he remembered that highbloods happened to train together from time to time, so Eridan must’ve met Mallek in the field at some point. Instead of exposing himself, Xefros simply listened to Daraya explain her relationship status to Eridan, looking wholly unimpressed as she did so. 

“Eridan Ampora?” Cirava interrupted from beside Xefros, making a few heads turn to stare at them. 

“Yes? You know my full name.” 

At that, a wide grin slowly tugged half of Cirava’s face upward. 

“I know you.” 

Eridan looked very weirded out by that comment, which Xefros could relate to. 

“I told them about you.” Sollux explained in between spoonfuls. He must’ve done that last night, after Xefros had ran out of the room in a maniacal frenzy. 

“Oh. That’s Cirava?” Eridan didn’t sound as disgusted as he was put-off by this entire situation. In his shoes, Xefros was sure that he would’ve felt the same. 

“Yeah.” 

“You know me, too.” 

Cirava’s half-grin widened as their light green eye stared blindly in Eridan’s direction, unable to watch the color drain from his face, or his eyebrows furrow behind the thick frame of his glasses. He was clearly uncomfortable to be here, and Xefros wondered if there was another reason for that besides Cirava’s disconcerting appearance, plus their oddly prophetic tone. On a second thought, though, their reputation might’ve been the reason. Either way, Eridan seemed to decide against prolonging this strange conversation, and, instead, proceeded to finally take a shot at eating his breakfast. 

Glancing down at the small cup of pills resting on his tray, Xefros frowned. He hadn’t taken them yet, and, remembering what Sollux had bragged about yesterday, he didn’t know if he should. If yes, he didn’t know which ones. At his left, Cirava’s little cup held about two thirds of the pills in it, and, straight ahead of him, Sollux’s seemed to not even have been touched yet. How did they know which ones to take, and which ones to smuggle out of the canteen? Xefros’ pulse thundered through his chest. He took his cup and flipped it upside-down, so the pills all poured out onto a small section of the tray for better inspection. He knew that some of these were Adderall, and some were Prozac, because, during last year’s blood exam, while the doctor had been turned around to encase his samples safely away, he had sneaked a glance at the open file away from his seat, and read those labels on it, which naturally made him research them later, and find out what they did to humans. He had no idea what these did to trolls, though, but he supposed that it couldn’t have been something that much more different. There were at least three other types of pills in his cup that he didn’t know anything about, that looked nothing like the other two, and that made him wonder what made them so special. 

“If you’re wondering where to start, cut off the blue one.” Sollux said. 

That was one of the mystery flavors. 

“What does it do?” 

“Makes you faint quicker.” 

“Oh.” 

One quick glance at the small cups around him confirmed that neither one of the two had taken the blue pills. He kind of wanted to crane his neck to get a look at Mallek’s tray, too, blocked from view by the tetrarch, but decided against risking his low reputation for something ultimately inconsequential. Mallek’s doses were probably far different than his, anyway. 

“Should I just take everything else?” 

At that, Sollux shrugged, not answering his question verbally. If that was his ultimate response, then Xefros wasn’t sure what to make of it, and just took it as something positive. He didn’t know what else to do about it. Staring back down at his own tray, Xefros separated the blue pills from the rest and gulped all of the others down, feeling only partially guilty for that. In reality, he didn’t want to take any of them anymore, but, seeing as neither one of his experienced friends had been able to cut them all off yet, he understood that it was a process. He scooped up the remaining blue pills and hid them in a pocket. 

“Xefros?” Cirava asked next to him, making him turn to look at them. “Tell your moirail I want to speak with him.” 

At that, his brows furrowed some. He was fairly sure that Cirava could very simply do that by themselves, but, then again, he didn’t know their reason to have asked this in the first place. It might’ve been a considerate move that took their blindness into account, as much as it could very well just have been the asking of a favor for the sake of one. Xefros didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. Resigned, he turned to glance at the side of the tetrarch’s face, still engrossed in conversation with Mallek, and grabbed his forearm for attention. 

“Tetrarch.” His voice was level, because, despite how loudly those two chatted on his right, he didn’t think he’d ever need to raise his voice to make the tetrarch listen to him. Case in point, the tetrarch immediately put the conversation to a halt, and turned to meet with his reds, making his heart leap, and a twisted sort of pride spread all across him from having been picked over Mallek. He knew that that was dumb, because the tetrarch had clearly been speaking with Mallek this entire time, but it was still a good feeling, and he wouldn’t keep himself from secretly indulging in it. 

“Cirava wants to speak with you.” He leaned back onto his seat, so the tetrarch could see Cirava’s lazy grin pointed in his general direction.

“Yeah?” 

“The schedule.” Cirava said. “You wanted one.” 

“I still do. Do you have it?” 

“Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after class.” For the next part, Cirava seemed to want to face Xefros, even though they weren’t actually successful this time, so, out of politeness, Xefros placed himself in the direction of the blind green orb. “I suggest you still practice at your leisure to pick up a habit.” 

“Okay.” 

“Starting tonight?” The tetrarch asked.

“Starting tonight.” Cirava repeated. 

He wasn’t nervous about that, he told himself. It’d be better than last time, because he wouldn’t push himself anymore. He’d respect his physical limitations now, and start out small, regardless of how much less it made Cirava think of him. He’d rather be a loser than run the risk of blowing himself up to pieces, or shattering part of his own face, especially not when the tetrarch had  _ just _ called it perfect. Yeah, he was still reeling from that, and it still made him feel warm inside, so what? He’d allow himself that much, if nothing else. 

“Karkat missed breakfast.” The tetrarch pointed out a while later, while they walked out of the lobby to catch the bus together, as if on purpose to ruin just how nice Xefros had been feeling a moment ago. That made him turn to the tetrarch with his jaw set and his brows furrowed. 

The comment had been made almost absently, as if Karkat’s presence was the ghost of a recurrent thought, floating around in the back of the tetrarch’s mind, but it was enough to twinge Xefros in the chest. Given their history with Karkat’s disappearance, he couldn’t find it within himself to take this lightly, even if it bore no malice whatsoever. The nice and warm feeling from a minute ago had completely died now. 

“Don’t do that.” He whispered through gritted teeth. “Please.” 

Walking right next to him, the tetrarch spared him an open glance, unobstructed by the aviators that sat atop his head. His brows had a small crease in between them. 

“Do what?” 

He refrained from answering the question with a simple shake of the head, dismissing it entirely as they climbed into the bus. He didn’t want to do this right now, or ever, and the weight atop his chest was heavy enough to make him unable to breathe correctly already; he couldn’t imagine how it would’ve been to confront the tetrarch like this. He’d probably pass out in the first minute. Sitting down, he raised a hand up to his own sternum, to feel the speed of his racing heart hammering through his ribs. The tetrarch took the seat next to him, twisted around to rest his back against the window, and spoke with both Sollux and Aradia for most of the ride as he remained quiet. It felt like betrayal. 

In class, to make it all worse, instead of working on their essay, the tetrarch stared at the back of Karkat’s head for the better portion of the period, sitting a few rows up ahead next to Dave. His brows were knit hard together, and he seemed very pensive, obviously having a lot cloud up his mind about this, but not actively voicing any of his thoughts, just silently glaring at the two of them. Xefros wondered if it was because of what he had said earlier, and if that had made the tetrarch upset. Despite how awfully this made him feel, he inched his chair a little bit closer to the tetrarch, and touched his arm for attention. 

“What are you thinking about?” He whispered, watching as the tetrarch’s eyes left Karkat to glance at him instead. 

His question ended up being as good as nothing, because the tetrarch quickly dismissed it, saying it wasn’t anything important, and turned back to focus on their paper again. Xefros slowly let go of his arm, feeling his own pulse falter, and his lungs shrink in size. What was going on? He thought that the tetrarch was over those two. The tetrarch had literally confirmed that just yesterday, so what was this fixation about? He didn’t like it. His stomach felt weird, and a shiver ran down his spine. He thought that this was over with, that Karkat wouldn’t be a problem anymore, and that the tetrarch would be moving on to something actually important now. His shoulders felt heavy. He really wished that the tetrarch would’ve told him what passed through his mind, because he didn’t have the faintest idea anymore, and that upset him more than Karkat’s return into his long list of problems. 

Slouching into his seat, Xefros caught a glimpse of a book cover under the tetrarch’s desk. It must’ve been the one that the tetrarch had been reading yesterday, that belonged to Mallek, if he hadn’t finished it overnight. That name alone made his jaw set. Through his distaste, he wondered what was in those pages; what it was that Mallek so adamantly wanted the tetrarch to know about, and that had apparently succeeded in seizing the tetrarch’s attention for more than a day. 

“Tetrarch?” He whispered.

Without looking up from the paper, the tetrarch whispered back. 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you mind if I see the book that’s under your desk?” 

“Go ahead.” 

At that, the tetrarch reached under the desk, and brought the book out for Xefros to take. He glanced away from the essay to meet with Xefros’ grateful smile as the book exchanged hands, and, for as much as Xefros burned with hatred for Mallek, in the one second that their eyes met, he was washed over with genuine appreciation and gratitude. The moment was a fleeting one, though, and ended right after; the tetrarch turned back to work on their paper, and Xefros was once again consumed by the flames of loathing, which, for once, weren’t directed at himself. 

He laid the book down onto his desk, and opened it to glance at its first few pages, searching for a title, or maybe a table of contents. As had also been the case with the Nurse’s book, this, too, didn’t have a very helpful, or even remotely accurate title; something that he knew was meant to hide the book’s sensitive material from the officials, so he flipped some more pages, until the table of contents appeared, making him stop to read it, and his eyes immediately widen. Before him were the quadrants, listed out by page number and subtopics. The breakdown of blackrom and redrom came first, followed by each of the quadrants, thoroughly detailed and explained along two hundred pages. His heart stopped beating for a full second. Why did Mallek lend this to the tetrarch? He closed the book. 

His mind was a blank speckle of space dust. 

He wanted to ask why Mallek had this, where he had gotten it from, why he had lent it to the tetrarch, under which pretext, with what intention, and if they talked about it. How far the tetrarch was into it, if they discussed their own quadrants with each other, and what Mallek hoped to get out of this. He took the book and slid it under the tetrarch’s desk again, deciding against asking him a single thing, or even mentioning this book again. Clearly, perusing it had been a counterproductive idea. 

Lunch rolled up and gathered everybody in long lines at the cafeteria. Xefros’ mind was still a little scrambled from his findings, and fixed on the book secured inside the tetrarch’s bag, all throughout the servings, the sitting down, and the eating, rendering his ears useless, and his attention span nonexistent for the better portion of the period. All he could think about was the book, and the multitude of questions that it brought him, with no discernible answers. In his mental absence, he ate all of his food, and took all of the pills, to only come back to himself by the time everyone was starting to leave; not him and his friends, but the other trolls at the cafeteria. His friends all still sat and talked in deaf tones. 

“Aren’t we going to the hill?” He asked the tetrarch all of a sudden. The question must’ve randomly reached him sometime in the middle of his stupor. 

“We could go.” The tetrarch answered. 

“Yeah, we haven’t done that in a while.” Sollux commented. 

Sitting across from him, Daraya looked as if she wanted to ask about this hill that they all spoke of, but decided to simply follow them out instead, and see it for herself. 

Down at the field today, all of the highbloods had gathered to train with their designated coaches, and at their respective spaces, which meant that some ran laps in the track around the field, some stretched and pirouetted on the left side of it, and some did pushups, handstands, sit-ups, etc. on the right side. From the hill, the group had a privileged view of all three colors, able to pick out the Scorpios that ran closest to the fence, and most of the Aquarians exercising  on right side the field down to a considerable amount of detail. From here, Sollux could even point out where Eridan was, doing pushups right in the middle of dozens of his peers, and all of them could almost immediately notice Mallek’s ridiculous tomfoolery once he eyed them, jumping around the track, and waving his arms for attention, to make himself stand out from the other Scorpios. His silly antics had everyone laughing, but it only gave Xefros a headache, and set his veins on fire. No, not like that; the platonic version of that, he was sure of it. He was very sure of it.

One stupid lap later and Mallek disbanded from the group, leaving the track to approach the fence instead. Without his usual baggy sweater on, Xefros could see how slim and muscular he was; not as big as the tetrarch or Eridan, but not too far from that, either. It was disgusting, and put a deep scowl on Xefros’ forehead. Jogging over to the fence with a wide smirk on his face, Mallek approached, heaving and gasping for breath, but in a strangely collected manner that almost made him look emotionally detached from the very fact that his lungs currently screamed for air. He stopped about a foot from the fence, and brought both of his palms up to visually indicate his confusion toward all of this. 

“What are you guys doing here?” 

“Take a wild guess, man.” The tetrarch answered, looking very casual from where he lay on the grass. 

Mallek grabbed a fistful of his shirtfront and pulled it up to wipe the side of his face with it, where it dripped with sweat, but Xefros was convinced that, like a show off, he only did it to parade a portion of his flat stomach, which wasn’t even all that impressive, by the way. From all of the extensive exercising that he got from his coach, Mallek should’ve been a lot more physically outstanding than that, but whatever. If the tetrarch had a type, it certainly couldn’t be this guy. 

“Are you here to cheer me on?” 

“Close.” 

“I’m actually not sure why we’re here, either.” Daraya cut in. 

“Do you like men, Daraya?” 

Sollux’s question made her face change from its usual nonchalance into the first other expression that Xefros had ever seen on her; wide-eyed and tight-lipped, she looked as if she had just been brought back to life by a defibrillator. Since he hadn’t actually seen her express anything besides boredom and a detached type of interest, Xefros didn’t know what this face was supposed to mean. 

“What?” 

“I’m asking you if you’re interested in men.” 

Her lips parted to answer, but nothing came out, so, from down the hill and behind the fence, Mallek did for her. 

“Only two.” He said. “I’m one of them, and… Someone… Is the other.” 

At that, Daraya’s wide greens fixed themselves on her moirail’s face next. 

“You’re absolutely wrong.” She said, voice sounding strained. 

“Oh, really? Are you telling me we’re through?” 

“No, I’m obviously telling you your  _ other _ assumption is incorrect, idiot.” 

“Oh.” A pause. “Really?” 

Daraya raised her brows in a look that only served to point out her moirail’s stupidity, which really resonated with Xefros. For this one second, he liked her. 

“Are we talking about a love triangle or a sexy quadrant?” Sollux asked, bouncing his brows. 

“We’re, in fact, not talking about it.” Daraya clarified. 

“Are you guys here to watch us work out?” Mallek’s question sounded more like a flat statement that still hadn’t fully registered itself in his brain than a proper inquiry. On second thought, maybe Xefros wasn’t the dumbest of the group. That notion made him feel marginally better about himself. 

“Yeah. We used to just come here for ED, but I guess we can be here for you, too. I mean, that preview looked promising.” 

“What preview?” 

“The show you just gave us, pulling up your shirt?” 

Mallek scowled. 

“That wasn’t a show.” 

“So that took no effort? Damn, imagine what you could do if you--”

“Mallek.” Aradia spoke over Sollux, cutting him off completely, and putting a wide, mischievous grin on his face. At her voice, Mallek immediately turned to look at her, his ocean blues wide. 

“Yeah?” He almost sounded breathless. 

“Why don’t you call Eridan over for us?” 

All of the high energy expectation on Mallek’s face immediately dissipated at that, even going so far as dropping his shoulders, but not casting his eyes down. Why did he look so disappointed all of a sudden? Wordlessly, he nodded, turning on his heel to go fetch the seadweller doing jumping jacks a quarter of a field in. The five of them watched him go, while Cirava probably just felt his presence leave; Xefros still wasn’t sure how that worked, and was too embarrassed to ask. He did, however, want to know more about what had just happened, and was pretty sure that the tetrarch, after all of that time spent chatting with the guy, had the answer for him. He knew that Daraya, as the guy’s moirail, also knew about this, but she seemed very steadfast about keeping her quadrants private, so she probably wouldn’t be of too much help. Maybe she could be a plan B, though, just to have it. 

“Do you know what that was about?” He whispered, turning on his side to face the tetrarch. 

The tetrarch watched him leisurely from behind the aviators, he could see it well from this angle, bright enough outside to enable him the distinction between the tetrarch’s pupils and the rest of his eyes, and know that they had been trained on him this whole time, as they lay side-by-side, putting a skip to his heartbeat, and something else, something colder to run in his veins. Something that wiped Mallek’s importance entirely.

The tetrarch loved him. So simple, so true, and incredibly difficult to believe. Obvious to everyone but himself; crystal clear in the attention that always put Xefros first and in the softness of the hands that wiped his tears, yet here he still was, bending over backwards to not acknowledge that, to, instead, accuse the tetrarch of something horrible only to justify the fact that he couldn’t possibly understand why someone like the tetrarch would ever go for someone like him. His own shortcomings were so massive in his own mind that a flawless entity on this Earth couldn’t possibly, actually like him, right? Five years down the road, and that still stupefied him. It’d make a lot more sense if the tetrarch were with literally anybody else. 

“What do you mean?” 

He blinked. 

“Nothing.” He said, not thinking about Mallek anymore. “Nevermind.” 

He felt like shit for what his mind had made up about those two, as if he had any palpable reason other than his own twisted imagination to ever doubt the tetrarch at all. He was so fucking disgusting that he made himself sick. It burned in his stomach, and tried to come up his throat, but he didn’t let it. His heart started to race, his arms itched, and he wanted to scratch them; he really, really did, but he tetrarch was right there, and absolutely loathed it when he did that, so he closed both hands in fists instead, and pushed his nails hard into his palms. It didn’t hurt as much as he had hoped it would, but it was all he could do at the moment. 

After lunch, as they walked back to the classroom, the tetrarch stopped by the open doorway, preventing him from going in by their interlaced hands that tugged him back. At that, he turned to glance at the tetrarch, awaiting some sort of explanation, and watched as the coppers above him scanned the half-empty room before falling on his face. The tetrarch was looking for something. 

“I’ll stay here for a while. Kind of want to speak with Karkat before class.” The tetrarch explained, and of  _ course _ it was Karkat. Of course it was going to be Karkat. 

He remembered, now, where all of his paranoia came from. Where his illusory distrust of the tetrarch started.

“Can I stay?” He asked tentatively, already knowing the answer to be no. 

“I don’t want to overwhelm him.” 

His jaw set. Even though he had expected it, his heart still sunk at the rejection. Surely, the tetrarch had all of the reason for that, and didn’t  _ have _ to tell him everything, but why couldn’t he tell Xefros everything? It didn’t use to be like this; they used to tell each other everything, every single thing, even Xefros’ embarrassing feelings, because, back then, he didn’t have anything to hide. All of his experiences with the tetrarch and his feelings for him had been purely platonic then, until, until… He nodded his understanding. The tetrarch wanted to speak with Karkat by himself, and that was fine; Xefros wouldn’t overreact about it. Obediently, he let go of the tetrarch’s hand, and walked over to his own seat. 

He was the problem, he realized, or maybe he had always known it, deep inside. It was no surprise that the tetrarch could speak with Karkat by himself if he wanted to, and he could discuss quadrants with Mallek if he wanted to, and he could be in a secret club of sorts with Mallek, too, if he wanted, and Xefros didn’t have to know of it; he didn’t  _ have _ to know, just like the tetrarch didn’t  _ have _ to know what he thought about all of this; moirails didn’t have to tell each other everything. The tetrarch could do whatever he wanted, and Xefros could think whatever he wanted, and that was all fine; it didn’t indicate the beginning of a falling moirallegiance, because nobody had ever even mentioned that, and what was he thinking? That was ridiculous. Their moirallegiance was fine; it had never been better, and if he happened to be harboring a set of very few wrong feelings for the tetrarch, then that was completely on him, and not on anybody, or anything else. He took full responsibility for it, and would work harder to improve himself; he might’ve been their weak link, but definitely wouldn’t be their downfall. He was certain of that.

Sure, maybe best friends didn’t sleep together, yeah, that was fair, but there wasn’t a law that prohibited them from doing that, either. It might’ve been immoral at best, but anything that the tetrarch ever did was perfectly justifiable, which exempted Xefros from any wrongdoing in that specific regard, so they were fine; that wasn’t a risk to their relationship, absolutely not. Sleeping together was fine, keeping some secrets from each other was fine, speaking with Karkat alone was fine, seeing Mallek alone was… Fine. It was fine. Of course, yeah, it was fine. Having secrets with Mallek, seeing Mallek in secret, borrowing his things, meeting with him, when did they meet?, it was all good. That was all good. Xefros squeezed his hands together and hid them under the desk. It took all of himself to not dig his nails deep into his forearms.

He watched the tetrarch leave the doorway to disappear into the hallway. Karkat must’ve just come back from his lunch with Dave. Were they dating, those two? They clearly had something between them, or Karkat wouldn’t show so much interest in him, and they probably wouldn’t be going out so much; Karkat hadn’t checked into the building for the last two days, not having been there for breakfast twice in a row, so they were probably wrapped in a quadrant or other together, Xefros just wouldn’t know which one. He could’ve wasted his time trying to guess, but, honestly? He didn’t care to. His hands itched and he kept them curled into tight fists.

Through the turbulence of his own mind, Xefros sat, and festered, until both the tetrarch and Karkat came back into the classroom to reclaim their assigned seats. The tetrarch, once next to him, draped an arm across the back of his seat, turned to look at him, and made those coppers immediately put a skip to his pulse, as they always did when this close. He watched the tetrarch lean in even closer, and had his own face betray him with color as his eyes dropped down to the tetrarch’s lips, and his body instinctively leaned away due to the watching public. They couldn’t do this right now, not when the professor was just about to begin the lecture, and there were people sitting in the row directly behind them. Still, he didn’t protest, and only shut his eyes for what was about to come. 

“We lost him.” The tetrarch whispered, so close to his skin that he could practically feel the words on his face. 

His eyes opened to see two big coppers staring at him, seizing his breathing. 

“What?” 

“Karkat. We lost him.” 

The name sent his heart racing, but for the wrong reasons; he had to actively stop himself from grimacing at it. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You know how he’s been super distant from us lately, skipping meals with us and generally not talking to us? Well, I thought, if it’s because he feels excluded, then I’ll let him know that he’s not, so I stopped him in the hallway, and told him that we’re still here for him. That, even if he’s fucking with a human, we’re still his friends, and he totally dismissed it. He looked freaked out, even, as if I had said the unimaginable.” 

“You…” His heart hammered loudly into his rib cage. “You went out of your way for that?” 

“Yeah, of course. Our kind has to stick together, Xefros. He’s still our friend despite everything.” 

“I don’t think he sees it like that.” 

A crease formed in between the tetrarch’s brows. 

“Elaborate.”

“I just think, I mean, you and I, we both attacked Dave; we hurt him, and we don’t like him, but Karkat likes him a lot, so I don’t think he sees this, uh, community that you, that you see, you know? I think he sees us as the enemy team.” 

“No, that can’t be right. He knows I’ll always be there for our own.” 

“I really don’t think he does, or that that even crossed his mind, but that’s just my guess. I’m probably wrong.” 

The tetrarch fell silent. His eyes drifted off to the side, pensive, deepening the crease on his forehead as he turned to face the lecture, even though his mind wasn’t on it. Xefros, leaning back onto the arm that hugged his shoulders, hoped to not have angered him by saying the wrong thing. The fact that they were back to randomly holding hands and sitting like this in class was his only saving grace; a reminder that the tetrarch still cared for him, regardless of the unspeakable that had happened between them twice now. In all honesty, Xefros didn’t think that they’d ever go back to normal, much less that they’d have a repeat of the best night of his life, but that just went to show that he was wrong very often, and about a lot of things. He’d probably be better off not believing in anything that he told himself, even. 

“What happens next?” He whispered, making the tetrarch turn to look at him. “Concerning Karkat, I mean.” 

The tetrarch shrugged. 

“I told you the other day that we’re letting Karkat go, which means that nothing’s really happening next, unless he comes to us for something.” 

His heart leapt at that, and a big grin wanted to break out, but he didn’t let it; he pressed his lips together to keep it in.

“So he’s gone?” 

“Pretty much.” 

For that one moment, he forgot about his long list of problems, and exhaled one long, big breath. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick update: I haven't abandoned the series, clearly, but it'll take me far longer than it usually would to finish it due to life happenings and other circumstances. I fully intend to finish this before the year's end. 
> 
> Another point I'd like to make is that I know Friendsim came out since the last update, but I haven't played it yet, and since I started this series before Friendsim was even in development, I don't itend on playing it or getting to know the new trolls before finishing this. Some consistency to my inconsistencies.


	10. A Step Forward

With Karkat out of the picture, Xefros could finally focus on the only other name in his hit list, which made things a lot easier for him, and the world seem that much brighter. There was hope for him, after all; he could still bring the tetrarch back, and his twelve-step plan to do that started at dinner. He listened to Mallek’s lengthy conversation with the tetrarch as they ate, trying to understand what it was that they talked about so much, and if it should worry him, but all they spoke of was politics and the recent measures of the current Government. In all honesty, Xefros had been expecting some sort of conspiracy, or maybe a string of theories, but, no. Those guys were absolutely plain, and couldn’t have been more boring if they wanted to. That must’ve been why Xefros had completely checked out of their conversations during every meal for the last two days. All in all, that was a weight off his shoulders, and one less thing to worry about. The list shortened. 

As he followed Cirava to the elevator, he cast one last glance back at the tetrarch, only to make their parting a little less painful, but caught a glimpse of something else instead. By complete accident, he watched Mallek pull the tetrarch to the side and speak with him alone while everybody else left for the backyard. The sight made him stop in his tracks to stare at them very openly, standing in the middle of the lobby, but neither one of the two seemed to notice that, too far across from him, and too focused on one another. Instinctively, his chest burned. Mallek had most of his back to him, rendering him only able to see the tetrarch’s face from this angle, free of the aviators. It changed from his usual insouciance into a perplexed scowl the moment Mallek opened his mouth. 

“Xefros?” Cirava called from a few feet away, unable to grasp his attention. 

The scowl on the tetrarch’s forehead deepened with his perplexity as he countered Mallek in return, and his lips read  _ but you know you can trust me. _ That could’ve been a “bro” instead of a “but”, though; Xefros wasn’t sure. He squinted. The tetrarch looked devastated, and whatever it was that Mallek was telling him made his shoulders droop, pulling a resigned nod out of him. He was clearly upset, but that was very quickly turned into resentment, with jaw set and lips pressed to a thin line. The tetrarch opened his mouth, speaking over Mallek next.  _ I know, dude. _ Mallek barreled on, probably without having heard that. It made the tetrarch dart his eyes off to the side, annoyed and stoical, but still listening. Both of his hands found the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and his shoulders raised in a half-shrug. He was keeping the anger in check.  _ You know how invested I am in this  _ he said, shoulders bouncing, scowl deepening; he was too hurt to jab Mallek in the face. Mallek spoke again, and the tetrarch fixed both eyes on his face.  _ Let me prove myself. _

A touch on his arm made him jump, but it was only Cirava standing next to him with half of a scowl on their face. He had been ignoring them. 

“Xefros, the elevator is here. Time to go.” 

Indeed, it was. 

Still, he couldn’t stop staring. Fifty feet deep into the lobby, Daraya approached the two that whispered in the corner and caused the air between them to shift from uncomfortable and tense to something lighter, friendlier, simply due to her presence. They seemed to have been speaking of something that she couldn’t know of, if her approach had instantly killed the topic at hand. Slowly making his way to the elevator, and stalling more than just a bit, Xefros watched her pull a laugh out of Mallek with a few words as the tetrarch kept his eyes cast away from either one of them, staring off to the side, pensive, with deep creases in between his brows. Should he have gone to the tetrarch? Daraya turned in his general direction just as the thought reached him, and shook his entire core hard enough to make him book it for the elevator instead, hopefully faster than she could get a sight of him. If he should’ve gone comfort the tetrarch or not, the possibility was out the window now, and sent a pang through his chest. Rationally, though, he knew that he should have, and had failed his moirail once again. At this point, that seemed to be his brand. He slouched onto the back panel of the elevator and watched as the doors closed with Cirava’s choice of a floor. 

He wanted to text the tetrarch. That was all he could focus on during the lecture, only half paying attention to all of the widely useful things that Cirava was teaching him, something about meditation and mental preparation, he wasn’t sure; he wanted to text the tetrarch really badly. Wanted to know if he was okay, what it was that Mallek had said to him that had upset him so much, why Mallek didn’t trust him, and what he was so invested in. If Xefros had to guess, this was about the “big something” that those two seemed to be in together, and that Xefros wasn’t allowed to know. Apparently, Daraya wasn’t, either, so he wasn’t alone on this one. Maybe moirails  _ did _ keep secrets from each other in a healthy manner, except, while it didn’t seem to bother Daraya, it killed Xefros from the inside out. He could feel his stomach rotting with the fact that Mallek had something with the tetrarch that he didn’t, and how dare he use words to puncture the tetrarch with! How dare he drop the tetrarch’s shoulders and cast his glance aside! It made Xefros sick. Mallek was despicable. 

“Stop thinking about him.” Cirava said from across the room, loud enough to penetrate through the thickness of his thoughts and startle him upright. “What Mallek told him will be revealed to you soon.” 

His eyes bulged out of their sockets. How did Cirava know that? Could they read thoughts? His heart raced, and his blood ran cold enough to make him not want to know the answer to that. If his thoughts were so openly displayed within Cirava’s presence, then he should be more mindful of them from now on. His cheeks brightened with the realization, but he hoped that Cirava’s partial blindness couldn’t pick up on that, at least. 

“I’m sorry.” He said, and proceeded to pay attention to the lecture. 

They meditated for about an hour. He was told to focus on the nothingness of his own mind and keep it engaged for as long as he could, breathing in, and out, accordingly. This would’ve been impossible had Cirava not shaken him from his own self-absorption, and rendered his very thoughts too embarrassing to approach while in their presence, meaning that, with the tetrarch prohibited to inhabit the forefront of his mind, he easily succeeded in engaging with the nothingness of his brain. He really didn’t have other thoughts that might’ve bothered him during the lesson, because, if they didn’t involve the tetrarch, then they were unimportant, and were completely dismissed. With a mind wholly blank, Xefros was swallowed by his own subconscious. 

“Xefros.” 

He opened his eyes. Sitting in front of him, Cirava smiled with half of their face. 

“That was outstanding.” 

The compliment raised his brows and put a skip to his heart. Infinite peace seemed to surround him. 

“Really?”

“Yes. Meditating everyday will be very beneficial to you.” 

“What does it do?” 

“You already know the answer to that, and will feel the effects of it soon.” 

He frowned, but didn’t contest them. Where psychic abilities were concerned, Cirava’s knowledge was far superior than his, so he didn’t open his mouth. Through their mystic riddles, Xefros was sure that they knew what they were talking about, even if he couldn’t personally understand it, or actually know what good meditation did him. If Cirava had said that he knew that already, then he probably did. He got up from the floor to bid his teacher goodnight. 

Out in the hallway, he texted the tetrarch for his location, and was told to go to 303. He took the stairs one flight down. 

The curtains that hung over the windows were drawn, and the light overhead was turned off, rendering the tetrarch’s room in the familiar darkness that it usually resided in, shielded even from the moonlight outside. The piles of clothes on the floor looked like clumps of shadow mostly pushed to rest by the wardrobe, surrounded by smaller articles and items that were strewn about the rest of the room, which Xefros was mindful of as he walked in. Passively, he made a mental note to clean this place soon, given how the wardrobe was most likely empty if its contents covered the floor. The tetrarch probably didn’t have much left to wear. He glanced over a shoulder and watched as the tetrarch shut the door behind the two of them with an impassive look on his face; eyebrows level, mouth set. The door closed with a soft click. 

“How was practice?” 

Even his voice held no emotion. 

“It was good.” Xefros answered. “We meditated.” 

The tetrarch nodded, crossing the room to the bigger pile by the wardrobe, where he must’ve been brooding for the last hour. His scent was all over the room, and filled Xefros’ lungs with every breath. The way it encompassed him was comforting. He followed the tetrarch to the pile and took the seat offered next to him, soon enveloped by the tetrarch’s arm, pulling him under the wing. With his head nestled in between the tetrarch’s shoulder and neck, he stared up at the darkness of the ceiling, focused on the warmth of the tetrarch’s body pressed to his own. A hand touched his hair, and fingertips traced his hairline, making his heart grow three times its size. The fingers that carded through his dark locks put a smile on his face, and brought back that infinite kind of peace that he had felt a minute ago. Maybe this was a sort of meditation, too. 

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, but softly, making his voice small to not stir the night. The tetrarch brushed his bangs up his forehead and his palm was warm. 

“You.” 

That answer had his brows rising in surprise, his heart racing. 

“What about me?” 

He could feel his own pulse skip at the words that came out of his own mouth with what they could ensue. 

“What you think of me.” The tetrarch answered, voice quiet, contemplative. Did he really need to sit and muse on that for hours on end when Xefros’ angle was so painfully obvious?

“You know that already.” He commented, feeling Cirava’s influence on his words. “Do you want me to say it anyway?” 

“I do.” 

“Okay, I think you’re the greatest troll that ever lived.” His chest filled with pride as he spoke, and he believed that completely. “I think you’re the best moirail that’s ever breathed, and the most reliable friend I could’ve asked for. You’re smart and righteous, considerate and kind. You’re a good leader and an even better partner.” He bit his tongue, cutting himself off from barreling into a whole new sentence next, one that he wasn’t sure could be said yet, but that he had known to be true for a long time. Possibly ever since they had met. In the candor of the moment, he had almost said… 

“I love you.” 

His heart stopped beating. 

“Did you know that?” The tetrarch’s voice was soft as he turned to look Xefros in the eye, despite the darkness of the room, laying on his side. Without the aviators on, Xefros could see the glint on the coppers that watched him under a delicate scowl. 

His vision quivered with unshed tears. 

“I did.” He answered truthfully, having always known that deep inside, but never believing it’d be something that they would ever actually say to each other. For the last five years, they had resorted to demonstrating their affection for one another with actions and public stances rather than sentimental words, or even this kind of closeness; the hand in hair, the half cuddle, it was all very recent. That would’ve been unimaginable just a year ago. He touched the tetrarch’s chest as his own seemed to want to burst right open. “I love you, too, of course.”  _ So much, so much, so much, so much. _ His voice trembled. 

“Not everything you said about me is true.” 

He exhaled slowly, shakily. 

“Yes, it is.” 

“No. I’m not a good moirail to you, Xefros.” 

At that, his brows furrowed, and the tears were blinked away. His heart pounded into his chest now, slamming against his ribs, coloring his face in deep, unadulterated offense. What nerve the tetrarch had to say something like that. His throat closed, choked half of what he wanted to say in response. The hand on the tetrarch’s chest wrinkled the front of his hoodie in a fist. 

“Yes, you are.” The indignation in his voice was sharp. He had never disagreed so wholeheartedly with the tetrarch before, not even during the argument last Sunday, because, even then, his core hadn’t burned as vividly as it did now, consuming him by the veins, widening his eyes. He could feel the warmth that radiated from his own face in the small space between them. 

“Not when my intentions are redder than pale.” 

He breathed in, his cheeks tingled. The heat that flared through him was of a different kind now. 

“That’s not a problem.” He said, voice low, trying not to stammer. “You know it’s not a problem.” 

“I know we weren’t thinking.”

His blood ran cold, and he had to actively opress the rising panic in his chest, breathing shallower now, as not to scream. It hadn’t been a mistake, what they had done, and if the tetrarch was about to tell him that, then he didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t bear hearing it. The fist pressed to the tetrarch’s chest dug his knuckles into the fabric, pushing onto the skin below it. The tetrarch didn’t react to that.

“Yes, we were.” His tone sounded strained in his focus not to shout it. His heart was beating far too fast now. “We knew what we were doing.” 

“Sure, we knew it, but we weren’t pale then. You can’t possibly tell me you felt completely platonically for me last Monday when I held you down and kissed you.” 

His eyes widened, his breathing ceased. They had never acknowledged that so brazenly before, bared out in the open like this, being spoken of out loud. It made his heart leap up to his throat and his cheeks burn. 

“No…” He confessed, face tingling. “But I didn’t  _ not _ feel platonically for you, either. I, it was, it was a mixture of both. I felt it. I wanted to kiss you as much as I wanted to hold you.” 

The words that left him were so honest that they scraped his throat raw. 

“It was an addition to how you already felt before, wasn’t it?” 

“Yes!” He breathed in, deeply. “Did you…?” 

“Yeah; I felt it, too.” 

His lungs expanded incredibly, filled with air, drawing in life. The tetrarch felt the same. 

The tetrarch felt the same.

“You were still my moirail at that moment, Xefros, but you were also something different. Something…” A short pause. “I can’t explain.”

“I know what you’re saying.” 

At that, the tetrarch squinted, as if doubting him. 

“Do you?”

“Yes, it was a bond.” He had belonged to the tetrarch, then, in a distinct light from how he usually did. It had been more physical, carnal and urgent, sprouting from a fire deep inside that writhed with envy. He had seen it in the possessiveness of the tetrarch’s eyes, and felt it in the firmness of his hands; the intensity of his feelings had been a lot different than how they had touched one another for the first time. This seemed to have held a separate meaning from the first, considering the way that the tetrarch had rebranded him clean of Dave’s engravings, claiming him over the mark left on his skin by Dave’s own hands. “Is there a word for it?” For the devotion, the faithful allegiance that drove them to each other. His stance toward the tetrarch was nothing short of piety. 

“I don’t know. If there is, I don’t know it.” 

“Doesn’t the book you’re reading tell you about it?” 

“It dwells on the quadrants, sure, but none of them seem to accurately represent what I feel for you.”

“And what’s that?” 

He didn’t know what pushed the question to fly out of his mouth, when, normally, he would never have asked it, but it must’ve been the shift in the air between them that gave him courage, or the certainty of the tetrarch’s feelings for him that made it safe to speak more openly again. He knew that, as moirails, they could always go to each other for anything, but years of being shot down for having said the wrong thing had made him fearful of speaking his own mind too much, without saying what he knew the tetrarch wanted to hear. 

The tetrarch gestured vaguely. 

“You, more than anyone, should know what I mean. What we have transcends the system of quadrants, and pushes the four boundaries into something slightly different, kind of uncharted. I see you as a moirail as much as a matesprit, but I know you’re far more than both.” 

His heart hammered into his ribs. 

Watching him, the tetrarch touched the side of his face with a hand, fingers soft with sentiment and eyes sharp with conviction. He swallowed. 

“We’ll pioneer this.” The tetrarch’s voice was low and steady; baritone brimming with so much certainty that it almost quelled his frantic heartbeat. “We complete each other to no fault and don’t depend on anybody else. We’re enough, quadrants don’t apply to us. Do you feel the same?”

“Yes.”

The word left him in a breath, ignored by his own brain, sprouting deep from the heart. In truth, he had wanted to shout it, but, under the tetrarch’s trance, all he could do was stare into the brightness of his coppers and feel his own chest waver. 

The hand on his face held it firmer and the eyes that watched him shone.

“Xefros, be my only one.” 

His breathing ceased.

“Promise to be my everything and I’ll promise to be yours.” 

“I promise.” 

He was so eager to say it that the two words were almost unintelligible, spoken fast enough to trip over one another. His pulse pounded into his ears, and he was too breathless to think of the implications of their oath; all he could do was watch a smirk tug the corner of the tetrarch’s mouth, inching closer, until the room went from dark to nonexistent. The fangs that pushed onto the meat of his lips were warm with the kiss. 

That night, sleeping soundly against the tetrarch’s chest, he had completely forgotten about the silent conversation that he had eavesdropped onto just a few hours ago. He had initially meant to ask the tetrarch about it, or maybe coerce something out of him, if he was too unwilling to tell, but that plan had been completely derailed by the turn that their conversation had suddenly taken, that had felt like having a rug swept from under one’s feet only to find a stack of gold hidden underneath it. He only remembered his former inquisitions early in the morning, after they had both showered, and were going through the tetrarch’s wardrobe for something clean to wear. Xefros had a couple of his shirts here, that had been discarded to sleep in the tetrarch’s recuperacoon for the last few days, but they weren’t very clean, and the tetrarch had little else left in the drawers. Xefros would have to tidy his room up tonight. 

“Can I ask you something?” He heard himself speaking, suddenly, out of formality, because the answer to that had always been… 

“Yes.” 

“What made we have that conversation last night?” 

Standing next to him, the tetrarch stilled, looking grave, with brows knit and eyes set onto the unknown. Xefros guessed it had something to do with what Mallek had said to him in concealment, given the book that the guy had lent the tetrarch, but he couldn’t well tie that to the responses that he had read on the tetrarch’s lips. It was only a hunch. 

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these days.” The tetrarch said, still staring ahead at the insides of his wardrobe without actually seeing any of it. “About what others think of me, you know? There’s a big dissonance between your intentions and how you come off to people, how they see you. You’d like to think that they know where you’re coming from, but they probably don’t.” 

“Are you talking about Karkat or Mallek?” 

At this point, everything was either Karkat or Mallek. 

“Mallek told me something last night that really bothered me.” Bingo. Xefros wanted to close a fist in celebration to his own genius, but kept himself in check as the tetrarch turned to look at him. Really look at him. “He doesn’t know who I am.” 

Xefros scowled. 

“What do you mean?” 

“He can’t read me, doesn’t know my angle, or even if he can trust me. This whole time, I’ve been completely transparent with him, but he still can’t figure me out. Like, there’s nothing to figure out. That’s the point.” 

“Why is he so wary of you?” 

“Because this isn’t about me; it’s about something bigger.” Double bingo. “We’re cool as friends, yeah, but that’s not it. Friends are easy to make; trustworthy companions aren’t, and that’s what he can’t see me as. I know it hasn’t even been a week yet, but, apparently, he’s about decided to not trust me already.” 

The tetrarch’s tone was heavy with grief. This hurt him. 

“I think this is on him, not on you. You’ve been honest, but he’s chosen not to see that.” 

“No. If he doesn’t see me as I am, it’s because I don’t look it. What reads on me sends a different message from what I mean.” 

He immediately opened his mouth to counter that, but found himself wordless instead, falling into a short pensiveness. For as much as he wanted to contradict the tetrarch right now, a collection of very old memories that they had made together didn’t let him. Before they had gotten officially together, and even for the first couple of years of their relationship, the tetrarch had been a much different person than he was now. He used to be rougher with his words, and sparing with his compliments, only touching his friends for rude shoves to go with his laughter, so when he started taking Xefros’ hand and hugging him fondly, they had all been shocked. Xefros, most of all. The tetrarch had always been brilliant in the head, and persuasive with his words, but affection had been a recent undertaking of his that he hadn’t perfected yet. His face was always very insouciant, with sharp brows and unreadable eyes, whether or not they happened to be concealed behind aviators, which made it difficult for others to pick up on what he meant, given the flat tone of his voice, and no visual clues. Xefros supposed that Mallek, having only met the tetrarch for a short while, hadn’t picked up on the details that tipped the tetrarch off. In Mallek’s defense, they were few and very subtle. 

“You agree with what I’m saying.” 

The tetrarch’s voice made his eyes snap up to meet with two defiant coppers that watched him. His cheeks burned. 

“I’m sorry.” 

His heart ached with the way that the tetrarch shook his head at that. This affected him deeply. 

“Whatever, it’s fine; I’ll make him see who I really am. I’ll prove my allegiance to the cause, no matter what it takes.” 

“What are you gonna do?” 

The question trembled out of his lips with memories of the tetrarch’s past convictions to prove a point or another to a particular subject at the time, which had always led one of the two parties to trouble, when not both. The tetrarch was an extremely dedicated troll who went to great lengths to improve himself in a wide variety of aspects to not only show his superiority off to others, but also inch him closer to conquering the revolution that he had always dreamed of. This was a very clear attribute of his that even remote acquaintances were able to notice from a distance, so Xefros didn’t understand how it flew over Mallek’s head, if that was really what had happened. If not, and Mallek knew how committed the tetrarch was to their Big Secret, then doubting him didn’t make any sense, unless the tetrarch had given him reason to, which Xefros disbelieved to have been the case, because that just wasn’t the tetrarch. He was a man of consistency. 

The tetrarch half-shrugged, slipping a shirt on. 

“I’ll come up with something.” 

At the time, Xefros didn’t think that that would’ve been the beginning of something else entirely. Holding onto the tetrarch’s hand on the way out, any concerns that he might’ve had revolving around this elusive future plan were covered up with the warm beating of his heart, strong on his chest, engendered by the much more emotionally relevant conversation that they had had the night before that still stirred around in his mind and put a vague smile on his face. It completely overshadowed the looming consequences of the embryo that still developed in the tangles of the tetrarch’s thoughts as they went on to have breakfast together, sitting side-by-side, with the tetrarch’s arm across the back of his chair, keeping him closer than usual, burning a smile on his face and making his heart leap for joy. He’d never remember to worry for the tetrarch’s concoction like this, and that wasn’t even the end of it. As if a direct response to his fervent wishes, the disagreement yesterday seemed to have pushed the tetrarch away from Mallek, even if only a little bit, and glued him even closer to Xefros instead, which absolutely fueled him. Whereas the tetrarch would’ve normally spoken to Mallek over the entirety of both breakfast and dinner, now his attention was a lot more focused on participating in the conversations that included Xefros, or simply excluded Mallek, and whenever he leaned in closer, tucking Xefros’ shoulder under an arm to add to the conversation, Xefros couldn’t help the smirk on his own face, or the puffing of his own chest. Out of pride or arrogance, he wasn’t sure, but paid that very little mind while throwing Mallek a sideways glance over the tetrarch’s shoulder. 

Mallek didn’t care, obviously, and the change wasn’t even that drastic. The two of them still talked to one another; the tetrarch hadn’t completely forgone their friendship, and still conversed with the guy, but they had grown apart. The tetrarch no longer touched on any personal topics with Mallek, and Mallek did the same in return, keeping their interactions to something a little more polite than what it used to have been. The shift must’ve felt uncomfortable for both parties, and it inflated Xefros’ ego to an unimaginable degree. He was kind of loving this, however unorthodox that might’ve been, but he didn’t give a shit; it felt too good in his veins to be passed up, and he very rarely allowed himself any goodness, always unworthy of it, except for now. Except for this one time, when he let himself have it. This one little thing.

How could he  _ ever _ have kept tabs on the tetrarch’s developing plan when they sat so close, when the tetrarch’s attention was undivided, when he felt so appreciated, cared for and loved? It was an impossible job that rendered him clueless one night, half submerged into sopor slime with the tetrarch, and dumb-faced at the question that had just posed itself to him. 

“Do you know what’s happening tomorrow?” Spoken around a playful smirk and making his eyes double in size out of fear. 

No, he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t have a single fucking clue, but something inside of him screamed a muffled answer that he couldn’t hear, that he should’ve known, that he probably used to know. It was on the tip of his tongue, just outside of arm’s reach, and it stopped his heart for a good whole minute. He must’ve forgotten a special date, he thought, even though he knew that that wasn’t it. 

“I’m going to change the world.” The tetrarch answered for him and yeah, yeah, exhale, big exhale; there was no way he could’ve guessed that. The question had been rhetorical. 

“Oh, I know.” 

“No.” A hand touched the nape of his neck, shot his brows up to his hairline. This was serious, and the coppers that watched him made that obvious, almost sending a shiver down his spine. Maybe that only didn’t happen because of the warmth of the slime, or the palm pressed to his back, the tetrarch’s arm around him. “Tomorrow at eight I’m going to leave the building, but only for a few minutes, to deliver a message that they won’t forget. You’ll be impressed.” 

That was when he remembered the plan, a full two months later. 

“Is it safe?” Stupid question, but one that he was emotionally compelled to ask, if only to hear the answer for vocal confirmation. To drive it in. 

“Nothing capable of changing the world is completely safe, Xefros, but you know I’ll come back to you at the end of the day. No matter what happens, I’ll come back to you.” 

Their lips met; it was him leaning over, earnestly closing the gap between them with a heart beating full to the brim and a chest unable to expand past his ribs. No thought, all feeling, but it’d be alright, he knew so, and stood corrected as the hand behind his neck moved up to press into his hair out of reciprocity. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can reach me @despairing-heart on tumblr or on my main @sea-demons


	11. Steadfast Results

Aradia checked her phone. The trademark impassiveness of her face remained loyal to her character despite the current circumstances that pushed Sollux’s brows to furrow behind his heterochromic glasses, Xefros’ feet to bounce under the table, and his hands to grab manically onto his own arms. His nails weren’t digging into skin only because the tetrarch hated that, and maybe it was his absence that kept Xefros in check, or maybe it was the screaming in his head that always drove him to appease to the tetrarch, ironic due to the fact that his very absence was the cause of Xefros’ lowkey despair. Lowkey for now, half an hour into the execution of the tetrarch’s mysterious plan that was only supposed to take a few minutes, and would apparently atone him before Mallek. Xefros still didn’t know what their Big Secret was, but, with last night’s hickeys burning deep into the flesh of his neck, he really didn’t care to know. Mallek was too far below him to be of any importance at this point. Pitiful, almost, if he even spared the troll a thought.

“Shouldn’t he be back by now?” 

The question left Aradia’s lips as an infinite echo of Xefros’ own thoughts, rummaging through his brain in a sickening loop since the tetrarch’s leave. It took all of himself to keep from pushing his nails in harder. He couldn’t answer this.

“He did say he was going out to change the world or whatever, but, then again, this is MM we’re talking about. Everything this guy does changes the world. He goes take a piss, and when he comes back, we have a new president.” 

Sollux was a bastard that didn’t understand the first thing about the revolution, or the tetrarch’s pivotal part in it, and the rising heat on Xefros’ face was scalding, matched by his burning stomach. Quietly, he breathed. Arguing with Sollux would’ve been fruitless; that had been a harmless joke, clearly, and he just wasn’t in the mood for it. Aradia didn’t laugh, either. Instead, her delicate brows pinched the center of her forehead. 

“I’ll bring him back.” She sounded resolute getting up from the table, and her movement made Xefros stand up, as well. 

“Me too.” He spat out, heart speeding, feet ready to take off running. 

Beside him, Sollux took his arm. 

“No.” Two voices; the moirails in unison, though it was only Sollux that continued speaking to elaborate on that decision. “Look at yourself, man. You’re shaking. Sit down.” 

“No, I can’t.” 

He had to go. Physically, mentally, emotionally, he had to go. He just  _ had _ to. 

“Xefros, it’s fine. Look at me. Hey. It’s okay; he’s probably just around the corner, on his way back. Everything’s fine.” 

He barely heard all of that. She was saying far too many words now; he could feel his own heart through his ribs, beating, gushing blood way too loudly into his own ears to hear anything over it. Her mouth moved, but she didn’t speak. He couldn’t hear. The arm in a tight fist around his wrist pulled him down, making him fall, his ass hit the wooden bench hard with the impact. Lights spun in beautiful swirls all around his head and he couldn’t really breathe. Faintly, he remembered that one moment when his hands were choking Dave alive, but without the rage, and, instead, with air inside his head. Blood gushed, and raced, and he could hear it so clearly that it made him sick. Bright lights faded into partial darkness, but his eyes were open, panic. Panic. His hand reached for Sollux and grabbed the first thing it found, soft fabric, no air, seized lungs. On the verge of screaming, the world lit up again, suddenly, and he could see, breathe, wheeze. His skin was cold save for his wrist. Looking down, Sollux was still holding it. 

“Xefros?” 

Sollux’s voice sounded faint and distant, but it slowly pushed into the foreground. He couldn’t hear the blood anymore. 

“Xefros? Fuck, dude, are you here?”

“I’m here.” 

The voice that left him wasn’t his own, but it couldn’t be anybody else’s, either. He didn’t recognize it, even though it had just left his own face. 

“Jesus Christ, what was that?” 

He didn’t honestly know, though this hadn’t been the first time. He hadn’t had one of these in a very long while; ever since the tetrarch’s last disappearance months ago. During their meditation sessions, hadn’t Cirava been trying to make him independent from his counterpart, able to function by himself and not completely freak out without him? He supposed it would take more than one troll to fix that about him. Cirava was just a kid, after all. 

“Aradia?” 

Her absence hit him like a freight train. 

“She’ll be back soon, don’t worry. They’ll both be here before curfew, I’m sure.” 

Sollux’s voice was too soft to be sure about that, really sure about that. He couldn’t logically be, anyway, and Xefros saw the lie right through the red and blue of his eyeballs. Resigning to that statement was only a choice. 

“Right.” 

At exactly nine p.m., they watched the gates slowly close, and the guard retire to his station for the night shift. The rightful despair that entailed didn’t immediately register itself in Xefros’ brain as Sollux took him up the stairs, adding another missed call to Aradia’s phone log with a badly suppressed sigh. His confidence collapsed with the closing of the gate, he wasn’t so sure anymore, and Xefros could rightfully call him on the lie now, but Sollux’s trembling hands and furrowed brow made him change his mind. They were both on the same boat here. 

“They’ll be--” 

Sollux cut himself off to very suddenly turn around and stare at the emptiness of the stairway shaft. Behind them was only darkness. 

“Huh?” 

“What?”

“I, uh.” A hard blink and a scowl. “Sorry. You didn’t call MM’s name, did you?”

Had he? No. No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t. 

Had he?

“No.” His voice shook; he wasn’t sure of the answer himself. At this point, he wasn’t sure of anything, and couldn’t trust his own instincts. 

“Huh, alright.” A pause. “I guess.” 

Were they both going insane? Sollux took his arm and tugged on it to have him walking again, following suit up the last couple of floors. It must’ve been a psychic thing, this lost grip on reality that they randomly experienced every now and again. For as prideful as Sollux was of his own abilities, that still didn’t keep sanity from slipping through the gray of his fingers, making him hear voices that didn’t exist, and see imagery that was completely formulated. Xefros wasn’t the only one, and Sollux also suffered at the absence of his moirail. Xefros wanted to reassure him in some way, to let him know that he wasn’t alone on this, but being affectionate with Sollux didn’t feel right, and opening his mouth away from the tetrarch had never been a good idea, so he simply followed his friend up to the third floor, and had the hand on his arm let go of it. 

“Try to get some sleep, man. We’ll see them both tomorrow.” 

Utter bullshit, but Xefros nodded despite it, and pushed past the door to the hallway. He wouldn’t be the one breaking Sollux’s optimism when the guy barely ever had any. 

Sitting in the darkness of the tetrarch’s room, the passage of time felt fake, and he was an expansive entity, with no beginning or end, only a disembodied consciousness buried in the tetrarch’s scent, buried far down into the pile of his clothes. He breathed in, his essence dissipated, his pulse slowed to a near-stop, and, if he stood still enough, still enough, maybe he’d feel the tetrarch again. Maybe he’d find him in some way, reach him and become one. Two consciousness, one atmosphere. Ideal, ideal; a sob came up his throat and he failed to catch it. He felt himself disintegrate; his chest hurt, squeezed, suffocated, but stopped when his phone buzzed. His hands trembled searching for it, and his arms were cold bringing it up to his face, feeling the vibrations shake his skin, blending his enthusiasm in. He didn’t need to read the whole contact name to put it to his ear as quickly as he could. 

“Tetrarch.” 

“Xefros, are you in my room?”

Hearing his voice felt like a thunder hitting him straight down the horns, and shaking him to the very core. The tetrarch was alive. He felt alive, now, too. 

“Yes, I am.”

All of his sudden, overwhelming energy pushed him to sit up in the pile, heart racing, blood flowing fast in his veins. He wanted to run a marathon straight to the tetrarch, jump out the window and zip through the air, fall and land perfectly into the tetrarch’s arms. 

“Cool; open the window.” 

End of the call. 

He had never moved so fast in his entire life. 

Leaning out the now open window, he saw the tetrarch, three stories down, study the brick wall of the building. Immediately, he wanted to shout for him, reach for him, engage with him in any way possible, but all of that would draw attention to the fact that the tetrarch had somehow gotten back to the building after curfew and was illegally trying to climb his way back in, so he didn’t. Instead, he watched, wide-eyed and silent, as the tetrarch carefully attached himself to the building wall, grabbed brick by brick and pulled himself up, using window sills as footholds and his own fingers as hooks. It was something of a miraculous sight to see so far into the night. Breathless, but, at the same time, with lungs full to the brim, he watched the tetrarch slowly approach the bedroom window, huffing and groaning so mildly that Xefros doubted anyone had heard him. He had barely heard the tetrarch himself, only noticing his exertion once he was close enough to reach down and grab. Desperate hands quickly shoved themselves into the fabric of his hoodie, willful enough to have punched holes in it had Xefros’ fingers tried, but they were closed in tight fists that pulled the tetrarch up with all of his might, all of his arms could handle, adding legs and torso with feet pushing on the wall for leverage. This must’ve all been useless, though, because it threw the tetrarch off his balance and made the landing a very messy one, but he didn’t care. He  _ needed _ to do it. He needed this, and took the opportunity, as the tetrarch crash-landed onto him, pushing him onto the ground, to wrap both arms around the big torso that suffocated him and hold it close, squeeze it hard, keep it for dear life. He wouldn’t pass this up for anything. 

Above him, the tetrarch wheezed softly, with face hidden onto the crook of his neck as both arms pushed their way underneath Xefros’ shoulder blades for a tight hug. This was a very obviously bad sign, but his brain was too fogged up by their physical contact to think anything past this desperate embrace. In a way, he felt his own distress reciprocated, and that brought him emotionally closer to the tetrarch, mindless of where that had originated from. For him, as usual, it had been the tetrarch’s absence, and, stupidly, for a full second, he had managed to actually make himself believe that the tetrarch had suffered just as much from their separation. He was far too gullible. Squeezing the body above him, breathing out slowly, and listening to the erratic gaspings of the tetrarch, a sob escaped, not from his own throat this time. It immediately put a hard scowl on his forehead. 

“Tetrarch?” 

Another sob, thicker than the last, followed by a gross one as the torso above him shook and trembled in his arms. He had never seen the tetrarch cry and this was far beyond disconcerting; it was alarming, worrying and disorienting, leaving him lost for words as he simply hugged the tetrarch harder and let him cry on his neck, tears warm up his skin. He was in shock. This had literally never happened before, and whatever had caused it must’ve been bigger than the both of them. Everything that pertained to the tetrarch was always bigger than the both of them. Limp, but with joints locked tightly in place, he held the shaking troll above him, breathing shallow himself from the weight that pressed him down. 

By the time the tetrarch moved away from him, he had almost grown accustomed to this whole thing; the crying, the lack of oxygen, the absolute nebula that was his big, empty brain and mouth. He didn’t know what to say, what to do, and simply mimicked the tetrarch, sitting up against the wall. Under the moonlight glow, he watched, absently, as the tetrarch rubbed a palm under his eyes and smeared his tears away. Xefros wanted to touch them, feel them, know that they were real, but, instead of reaching across the small distance between them, he simply touched his own neck and felt the dampness there. His fingertips tingled with it. 

“Tetrarch.” 

A whisper.

“She’s dead.” Spoken through a sob muffled behind the tetrarch’s hands. They covered his face as his shoulders shook and he struggled to breathe through the sobs. 

Xefros felt his entire body shiver. 

“What?” 

No intelligent response to that, only more garbled nonsense half stuck into the tetrarch’s throat, pushed out to scrape his tongue. 

Of course he meant Aradia, otherwise, who else could he have possibly been referring to, in the middle of the night, after what must’ve been the world’s worst attempt at redemption? Xefros felt his own body grow colder, his skin prickle with the news. Aradia, dead. He had seen her just a few hours ago; it was surreal to think he’d never get to see her again. What the fuck. 

“What, what happened? What, I, how, how, Aradia. Aradia?”

Wordlessly, the tetrarch nodded, sobs growing thicker and breath coming in shorter; Xefros could see it in the way that the tetrarch’s shoulders sagged and trembled, keeping his lungs from filling up completely. In a sort of shocked, mindless silence, Xefros scooted closer to his moirail and drew both arms around those broad shoulders, pulling him into a hug, cradling him again. The tetrarch was in no condition to speak further about this at the moment, and didn’t recover until the best portion of the night had been swallowed up by dawn’s slow approach. Huddled up in each other’s arms and surrounded by the tetrarch’s clothes, the both of them breathed, silently, mournfully, as the first rays of daylight colored the room from black to gray and allowed Xefros to look at the big body that slept next to him, the dirt and dry sweat that covered it. 

What the fuck did the tetrarch do? That question hounded Xefros so badly that he couldn’t catch a wink of sleep all night, or say a single thing when the tetrarch was up again, going about his morning routine in silence, acting so infuriatingly normally that it made Xefros want to scream. What the fuck happened last night? Xefros swallowed the question under the steaming hot water that nearly burned his skin raw as he rubbed it clean, watching the tetrarch from the corner of his eye, silently choking. How did it all go down? God, he was either about to shout it or blow up with it, but the tetrarch wasn’t giving him anything, not a single word, either, which was very, very weird, put him off immensely, and was the only thing keeping him from opening his dumb mouth, because he didn’t know if the tetrarch was back to his normal self again, or, at least, well enough to speak about it. To give him more than absolutely nothing. Was he alright, even? Physically, he looked untouched, though Xefros was sure that his hands were grazed from scaling that wall. Sneaking glances in the shower didn’t get him anywhere in regards to that, so he waited until they were both dressed and on their way to the canteen for that, when the tetrarch took his hand, and he could feel the cuts on the palm. 

Considering the fact that someone died last night, he’d say that the tetrarch got off unscathed. 

“Tetrarch.” His voice was hoarse from disuse but still sounded louder than a rocket in the empty hallway. It made him squeeze the tetrarch’s hand tighter. No response, so he pushed forward. “We need to talk.”

His heart raced against his ribs at his own words, at what his mouth had just done. Next to him, the tetrarch halted the walk and turned to look him in the face, with eyebrows drawn the slightest bit to what was surely the beginnings of a scowl. Despite his own perplexity, Xefros could still read the minute signs of fear that flashed across the tetrarch’s eyes, that widened his pupils, that put a quick, surprised squeeze in his hand. That made him stop and turn so abruptly. He was terrified. The tetrarch, terrified. After last night, Xefros wanted nothing more than to reassure him that everything was alright, even if he couldn’t, not rightfully, not really. Still, he placed a palm to the broad chest beside him to soothe the beating heart it protected. 

“I love you. I do.” Voice firmer now, smoother, not as small as it usually was. “I love you so much, tetrarch, but we need to talk about last night. I need to understand.” 

It was a plea more than anything, and softened the high alert from the tetrarch’s face into something less panicked, more composed. In silence, with a slight nod, his message was received, and had him being pulled by the hand back into the privacy of 303, where the door was locked and the blinds were drawn. That’s how the tetrarch liked to share confidentialities, in complete and utter darkness. Xefros only knew where his moirail was by the hand that guided him. 

“Ask me what you have to.” Words soft-spoken, nicer than what he had been expecting out of the tetrarch right now. Maybe panic had just mellowed into understanding.

“How did it happen?” 

“She, she didn’t know they were coming. She was behind the corner, I didn’t see her, I didn’t know she was there. You let her follow me.”

“No!” 

The shout was visceral, cut through his throat and burned in his chest. Blood rushed to his head, made him squeeze the hand in his own; what happened hadn’t been his fault, and how  _ dare _ the tetrarch accuse him. How dare him, how dare him. Xefros’ throat closed. 

“It was not your fault.” Composed, sweet, caring. The tetrarch’s voice complemented the hand that found his hair, ran through it, pulled him to meet face-first with the tetrarch’s chest. His ragged breathing slowed against the taurcer symbol pressed cool to his forehead. 

“I’m not saying it was your fault. You disobeyed me.” 

“No. No, she did. She, I knew she shouldn’t have, I couldn’t stop her. I, I couldn’t. I couldn’t even see.”

“We bumped into each other, she turned around, didn’t see the car.” 

“What?” 

He could barely hear himself talk. Aradia had been run over? His fingertips tingled, heart pumping ice. The tetrarch had watched it happen. 

“Her horns wrecked the bumper, the cops stopped the car. I ran. I’m here.”

Hands cold, arms cold, body freezing; he couldn’t feel his own heartbeat, couldn’t tell whether or not his face was still pressed to the tetrarch’s chest, couldn’t see the room but felt it fall, and split at the seams, and slip away. 

The tetrarch could’ve died. 

Bright light seared through his eyelids, made him lift a hand to cover it, squinting, being hit with the full weight of his own body, warm, wrapped under a blanket. He was in rehab, tucked into one of their cots, and someone was sitting at his side, denting the mattress down. If he was still in his clothes, then the fainting hadn’t been so bad, even if his hearing took a second longer to slowly, slowly come back and grace him with the tetrarch’s voice, discussing something unintelligible with Sollux, in the distance, but approaching. He removed his hand away from his own face to look, but saw someone else instead, sitting where he thought would’ve been the tetrarch’s place. 

Aradia, but her eyes were whited out. Aradia, but she had a red football jersey on that didn’t belong to the government’s selected wardrobe for trolls. Aradia, but, alive? He blinked, twice. Staring back at him, Aradia smiled. This was reality. Her skin seemed lighter, and brightened the red lipstick against the white of her teeth. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her smile. She had dimples, secret dimples. Over her shoulder, he caught glimpses of the tetrarch and Sollux speaking to each other, a few feet back, which was the only thing that kept him from completely losing it, because if they were here, then everything was fine. He wasn’t dead or dreaming, because he’d never dream of Sollux for any reason whatsoever. 

“Aradia.” 

“Welcome back, Xefros. I found Dammek.” 

“I know.” Deadpan, dry. He lifted a finger. “Where’d you get that?” 

Her smile widened.

“That’s a secret.”

“You’re really here.”

“Yes.”

“Xefros.” The tetrarch’s voice, from behind her massive hair, nightmarishly black, crazier now. They both turned to look at him, though Xefros had to crane his neck to catch a glimpse of the copper eyes that sought him out beyond the locks that nearly concealed him. The tetrarch came over in two long strides, leaving Sollux to reach the door by himself. 

Aradia remained even as her moirail vanished.

“She’s not dead.” He crooned out, voice raspy with disuse. 

“I  _ am _ dead.” She corrected, easily, sweetly, making his blood turn to ice in his veins. He couldn’t possibly be imagining this. Please, no.

“Technically, yes, she is, but that’s a whole story. Xefros.”

Static.

“Xefros, look at me. She’s dead, but she’s alive.”

The tetrarch’s voice was distant to the ear, so he read the lips that spoke to him to the best of his ability, but found himself too fixated on his favorite fangs to let his mind really focus. The tetrarch got closer, sat next to him on the cot, placed a hand to his chest and he held onto it with both of his, fingers squeezing the palm, nails denting the back. This was too much. One second she was dead, the next alive, and now both. Both? Reassuring against his heart, the tetrarch’s hand was warm, so he focused on this feeling, breathing, holding on. 

This was insane. 

Aradia couldn’t leave rehab, because of an undisclosed reason that she failed to mention despite him asking after it, and the tetrarch didn’t seem to care to know it, either, which made him think back to the conversation with Sollux a moment ago, but that ultimately had him silent while following his moirail out of rehab and into the stairway. The tetrarch knew, but decided not to tell. Surely, there was a legitimate reason for that, and the tetrarch was right to do it, but something inside of him began to twist from that. Again, the tetrarch knew something he didn’t, and decided to keep him in the dark about it. He never knew what was happening around him, and had never thought to question the tetrarch in his ways, but now? His friend was dead, or not!, and he couldn’t even fucking know it. 

No. 

“Tetrarch.”

No, but he was stupid. Didn’t know what was good for him, while the tetrarch did. The tetrarch had always known. He was an idiot for fighting reason.

“Tetrarch, stop.” 

Tugging at the tetrarch’s hand, they both halted on the steps between the second and third floor, alone in the stairway shaft. No one ever took the stairs. 

“I know you’re still out of it, Xefros, but you’ll feel better soon. I promise.”

So caring, so loving, so thoughtful. Why wasn’t he bursting with emotion right now? A disgusting, vile pang in his stomach twisted his feelings into a black spurge, and it sickened him. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t really control himself; practically watched his own self betray him, keep the tetrarch from leaving, open his big, dumb mouth. 

“No, I need to know what happened. Why is she still… Here?” 

Fixed straight on his face, the tetrarch’s eyes were stern, reading him, almost squinting. Figuring out his angle. 

“Please, I need to know.” 

That seemed to have done the trick, though, because it dropped the tetrarch’s shoulders and softened his features, made him bring a hand to Xefros’ head and run it through his hair. 

“We don’t really know. Sollux said she showed up at his door last night saying she had just been in the morgue. Literally… Resurrected.” 

“But she looks dead. It’s more like a, a zombification, isn’t it? A re-animation, I think. I don’t know. She looks happy.” 

“The Nurse knows about her, apparently, but won’t tell me anything. They’re keeping Aradia a secret.”

“Who’s they?”

“The Nurse, Mallek, Daraya. The resistance.” 

The resistance. Yes, of course; the deeper meaning to their friendship with Mallek, the tetrarch’s resolve to prove himself, this whole mess, the endless secrets and concealed subjects that he wasn’t supposed to draw out of the tetrarch. Apparently, he could know about it now. In a way, he supposed, he had always known. 

“What’s gonna happen to her?” 

“We don’t know.” 

She didn’t go to class anymore; her room was emptied out, her roommate didn’t get reassigned, and the entire system pretended that she had never existed. The teachers didn’t ask after her, the students didn’t notice, and, since she wasn’t allowed to roam the hallways, it was easy for others to pretend that she had been an illusion this whole time. It was easy to forget about her, too easy, but Sollux kept her alive in his speech, mentioning here and there that he had visited and how she had been doing. Xefros almost asked him if he could go with, but didn’t know how the tetrarch would feel about it. If he would even let him. 

In any other point of his life, Xefros would’ve forgotten about this. He would’ve accepted the fact that he’d never see Aradia again, would never know what, in fact, had happened to her, and would’ve left it at that, but, right now, he couldn’t. Despite how much he tried, he couldn’t let this go. He needed to know what the tetrarch wasn’t telling him, and figure out why he was always the one kept in the dark, so he did the unimaginable. The worst, most betraying thing he could’ve ever done to his sweet, kind moirail. His only one. After the building had gone to bed, he left his room and took the stairs down to the basement, without consulting the tetrarch first, without even a second thought. The walk there was static and his brain was empty.

The Nurse found him before he could find her, and, for the first time, it felt natural. It didn’t scare him; she knew he’d come tonight just as much as he expected her approach. Of course she’d meet him in the basement. The Nurse watched him with kind eyes while he asked after his friend, and didn’t protest the request to see her. 

“We’ve waited a long time for this moment.” She said, leading him through the whiteness of the hallways.

How long?

“I know.” He spoke quietly, following close behind.

“No, I refer to the freedom of your soul. The shackles you’ve left behind.” 

Admittedly, that placed a frown on his forehead. Shackles? He hadn’t left anything behind, unless she meant… No. No, that’d be ridiculous. The tetrarch was his entire life and future, the very opposite of that. The Nurse must’ve meant something far more profound than what his feeble little brain could come up with, and he believed that wholeheartedly, given how he could barely even lift a dresser. His mind wasn’t the best, or the smartest, and he had long accepted it. 

Trailing quietly behind, Xefros came upon the bowels of rehab, the Nurse’s office itself, a place he doubted many had been before. His surroundings almost felt like a revelation alone, and probably would’ve been thus, if he had all the pieces of the puzzle. Though, he didn’t, and had no option but to allow the vagueness of the room to pass him by. He followed the Nurse over to a big mahogany desk at the very center with a light feeling of wrongness about him, possibly foreboding, but hopefully not. If he had to guess, it was only his missing the tetrarch, and the beginnings of guilt.

Atop a green, fluffy rug, the Nurse paused and reached under her desk. Xefros was only just preparing to take a seat across from her when a noise echoed throughout the room, subtle but there, and something behind the Nurse moved. As the noise faded, the wall opened up a gap. Xefros paused midway into sitting down. 

“Come along.” 

The archway took them to a long, barren hallway, all gray walls and cement floors, only bearing a series of ceiling lights to make them see down to a door that stood at the very end. When the Nurse turned the handle to open it, it revealed itself out to be two thick and heavy-sounding safe-like doors, one behind the other, fireproof, bulletproof, almost the enough to make Xefros panic, but the Nurse’s strong presence kept him present. She’d take care of him, he knew. He had to believe in that, even if the guilt from before started to weight a little more now, and second thoughts began to crawl up his back. Not quite regret, though, not yet, but he did wonder just how soundly the tetrarch slept at the moment. Would he stir? Did he know? 

Behind the doors was a tall, wide room, seeming to be a bunker of sorts, with a wooden table in the center and some strange terminals by one of the sides, resembling weird, tall computers that he knew nothing about. There were doors and archways leading further into the bunker’s multiple wings, as well as colorful writings covering the walls, but Xefros barely paid attention to any of that when his eyes recognized two familiar faces that immediately reassured his heart: Aradia, sitting at the table, chatting with Daraya, and a troll that he didn’t know. In fact, someone he had never even seen before. Not at the building, not around campus. She saw him first, and, as she turned to face him fully, it became apparent why; the blue of her stockings, the blue of her dress meant she didn’t belong here. 

“Xefros, isn’t it?”

Her voice was too shrill to match up with the dark undertones of her expression, with the black of her cloak, and the ironic tilt of her smile. The way she watched him, threefold, sent a shiver up his spine. He wasn’t sure whether or not to answer her, and, again, getting away from the tetrarch, even if only for a moment, struck him as an awful, self-destructive idea. That tetrarch would’ve known what to do here. He would’ve known what this was. 

Something in the air must’ve shifted in the second of silence that poured into the room, because the troll’s face quirked, and her smirk twisted horribly with it. The sight terrified him, made him turn to look at his friends instead, searching for comfort, reassurance, anything, but found nothing on Daraya’s face, as usual, and even less on Aradia’s, because the slight smile that she seemed to constantly harbor these days was a mystery to him. It could’ve meant anything.

“Aw, don’t worry, sweetheart; I’m not going to hurt you.” The girl continued, smirk horrid, her three eyes wide. “I’m your new tutor, after all. You’re under my care now.”

What the fuck did that mean?

“Means I’ll reach the parts of your mind that Cirava can’t. They’re versed in object manipulation, not  _ people.” _

His heart was beating so fast that he could feel it through his ribs. She was reading his mind, and it cooled his veins, numbed his fingertips. It felt as if a rotting, decayed hand, cold with death and dripping with the unnatural, had rested on his head, seizing him by the skull, pulling him out through the spine. He could barely move, even though his hands trembled. 

“Ardata, you’ll push him away with that shit. We can’t have another member loss because of you.” Daraya cut in, sharp and dry, causing the other troll to face her, and all effects of her spell disappear. It almost felt as if snapping back into reality, or back into his own body after witnessing himself drown to death at the bottom of a frozen lake. His fingers were cold.

“I’m only giving him a Scorpio greeting, honey. Is it really that reprehensible?” 

“Considering the products of your exposure on people, yes.”

Three eyes rolled at that, but Ardata remained silent. 

“Welcome to your reawakening, Xefros.” Aradia spoke from across the table, all of a sudden changing the subject completely, shifting the atmosphere into something far different, though he wasn’t sure whether this was an improvement or not. Her voice was just as soft as he remembered it last, her new smile enigmatic and still. Regardless of the immediate future, staring at her dead, pale face already felt better than getting involved with the other two girls. 

Who, in fact, he had to admit that he didn’t like so much. 

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“What’s all of this?” He finally asked, confused beyond belief, and, by now, unsure whether or not to simply drop this whole rebellious idea and go back to the tetrarch’s warm and slimey recuperacoon. He had only come down here to find out what had really happened to his friend, not to change tutors or mysteriously reawaken somehow. None of this was his business whatsoever and he very strongly did not want to get involved with any of it. 

“This is where your journey begins.” 

“No, I mean this place. This bunker.”

“You’re in the heart of the resistance. This is one of our homes.” Daraya answered.

“We’ve been expecting you.” 

“You’re with them?” He asked the white eyes that watched him. 

“Since I died.”

His heart skipped a beat; it was still unclear to him whether or not his friend had really died, scientifically speaking, or if she meant it in a more symbolic way, like, sure, her pupils had completely disappeared and her skin looked a minute away from rotting away, but she wasn’t actually dead. Physically, maybe, but spiritually strong. He didn’t know, and recalling past conversations with the tetrarch didn’t help, either. In truth, she was probably both, and neither. 

“Aradia, I need to know what happened to you. Are you here?”

She giggled at that, a sound that he had never heard come out of her before, something so mind-boggling that left him staring like an idiot, reactionless to it. Aradia felt joy?

Maybe she did, now.

“I’m not a hallucination, Xefros. I’m here.”

“You’re dead.”

“Yes.”

“You’re here.”

“Yes, I am.” 

“How’s that possible?”

“Her death awakened the true potential harbored within.” Ardata explained, the shrill of her voice mostly gone, and replaced by a duller, more regular tone that didn’t affect him so much. It sounded almost… Nice, but not, no, not really. It was the sincerity that resonated a bit, about enough to fool him. 

“She’s capable of so much now that we don't even know the extent of it all. It’s as if Cirava’s ghost had coached her for a hundred years.”

Cirava. 

Yes, of course.

It all started to make sense now.

“Is that why they’re coaching me?” Voice small, brain stirring. His brows slowly pinched his forehead in half.

Of course. The psionics classes, the close attention on him, the sudden friendships, almost pushing it, just so. One day they’re a small group of four, the other an entire table in the cafeteria’s center. Yes. Daraya’s insistence on the better grasp of his mind, that he should control himself wisely, know his own reach, and her interest in Sollux, too; the fact that he barely took any pills anymore, fascinating, knew his actual potential, could do more than ten of him combined. How Cirava was so willing to help, how Mallek was far too inviting with the tetrarch, lending him books, chatting him up, all fake. Everything, everything; all teatrics, all strings. 

“Is that why, why you wanted me to take the lessons with Cirava, so I could be useful to your stupid resistance?”

“Yes--”

“I’m not part of this.” He barreled on, deaf to her answer and blind to everyone in the room. The sharpness in his chest cut straight through his heart, nearly reaching his eyes, but he wouldn’t let it. Dammit, no, he wouldn’t let it. Despite the anger boiling through his blood, this really hurt. 

He was such an idiot. 

“I’m not your puppet, Daraya, and neither is Aradia.” 

Coming here was a mistake. 

“Xefros.”

He should’ve trusted his gut.

Turning right around, the double doors back to the tunnel were open, unobstructed by the Nurse, and ate him up all the way down, back to the awful, the familiar white brightness of the basement walls. The voices from inside of the bunker never reached him, not really, not in his brain, not with so much roaming through it already, how stupid he was to have ever actually trusted her, Daraya, with his open heart. His ready friendship. She and Mallek, they had been so suspicious; he was an absolute fucking idiot for never having seen through them from day one. Daraya’s meeting with him in the girls’ bathroom should’ve been a dead giveaway, but he was too stupid to ever suspect anyone. Not anymore. He stepped into the Nurse’s office, empty, and ran out. 

“Tetrarch.” 

He couldn’t help himself; his palms found the tetrarch’s chest and pushed, soft but firm, submerged in green slime, shaking that big body awake. The tetrarch stirred, breathed in, and opened his eyes under a deep, confused scowl. 

Xefros stepped into the cocoon with all of his clothes on. 

“Tetrarch, I did bad. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He spoke fast, words tumbling over each other, heart racing, breathing ragged. 

Still half-conscious, the tetrarch took his wrists and stopped the frenetic pushing. He apologized for that, too, severely, continuously.

“Xefros.” Voice raspy with sleep, deeper now, putting an immediate halt in his rapid speech. 

Suddenly, all he could draw was a big blank in his mind, with absolutely nothing on his tongue to spit out anymore. The tetrarch was speaking, meaning it was his turn to listen. 

“What did you do?”

“I saw her. I went downstairs and I saw her, in the bunker, with the others. The Nurse took me there.”

“The bunker?” 

“The, the resistance, their home, behind the Nurse’s desk. She was there.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Aradia. She’s really dead.”

“Yes, she is. Why are you dressed?”

“I just got here!”

“Xefros.” Soft, low, in the tone that never failed to melt his heart. It dropped his shoulders and shut his mouth; had him watching, perfectly mute, as two hands rested on the sides of his face, warming up his jaw, the back of his neck, and pulled him closer to his favorite shade of copper, just this visible in the dark. “Breathe.”

He did, and it felt like a rebirth. 

“Now, tell me what happened. Slowly.” 

“I went downstairs. I snuck out, I’m sorry, but I had to know. The, the Nurse was there; she took me to the resistance. To Aradia.” 

“She took you there.”

“Yes. They’re playing us both, you know. Daraya and Mallek, they’re not really our friends.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Tell me what you saw. What did they say to you?”

“They want me and Sollux, like they got Aradia. They want our psionics, that’s all they want. They’re not our friends.”

“I know that. Did they mention me?”

“No.”

“No…”

“Only her and Daraya were there, that we know.”

“Right.” 

“Tetrarch, you don’t… Trust them, do you?” 

A pause.

His blood ran cold.

“Tetrarch--”

“They’re far more advanced than we are, Xefros. They have people, infrastructure, international connections. It’s a global complex, man,  _ global, _  and if we ever even dream of changing the world, they’re the ones who will do it. They’re the future. They have knowledge that the humans tried to erase from history and they have the structure to replace society at large, from here to Russia to Hong Kong. They’re an army, Xefros, not our little friends.” 

His mouth ran dry.

“Sure, they’re training you. They’re shaping you into a fighter; isn’t that a better fate than scrubbing floors and waiting tables?”

He couldn’t say anything to that.


	12. Destructive Salvation

“The trials have started, you know. They’re going to auction him off.” 

In the emptiness of the hallway, Sollux’s voice resounded across the walls, bouncing back against them. It made him sound a lot louder and more frustrated than he really was, or, maybe, it just about reflected his real, actual feelings. Xefros accompanied him out to the door, having his own heart weight at such a morbid topic choice all of a sudden. Graduation would be soon, and they were all mortified. 

“You knew this was going to happen…”

“Yeah, yeah, but it’s different. It’s too early. It’s not supposed to go like this. The humans are making reservations already, cherry-picking the best ones, but it’s too soon. It’s too fucking soon, dude!” 

He felt sick. 

Out the door, and into the whiteness of the Nurse’s office, Xefros reached under the desk to shut the gap while Sollux made a beeline for the exit. 

“Is he one of them?” He asked.

“I don’t know, but I’ll make sure that he isn’t.”

He scowled, following Sollux through the various twists and turns of the basement’s heart. They had practically memorized it by now, this far into the year, but if they happened to deviate from the straight path to the stairway, it still took the Nurse’s omnipresent help to guide them out. He didn’t like how somber his friend sounded. 

“How?” 

Sollux shook his head in response, and the subject died amid the white walls. 

At 303, he found the tetrarch laying on the carpet with the overhead light on, shining onto the pages of the book across his thighs. He read with his back on the ground and both knees bent, one leg resting atop the other. The book was placed down onto his stomach as Xefros went in, pushing the door closed behind himself. 

“How was practice? Anything new?” 

He shook his head. Everytime, the same question, and everytime the same answer, because he wasn’t great with words, and couldn’t explain the intricacies that consisted the inner machinations of his mind, how it worked. It had all become very mundane a while ago, with the exception of Ardata’s arbitrary decisions to terrify him in a new, different way every once in a while, though even that he had started to expect out of her. She was the worst teacher that he could’ve never asked for, but, despite the rust in his blood that genetically kept him unable to ever control minds, she had found another use for him. Instead of insisting on teaching him the impossible, she decided to infiltrate his brain instead, and reach the furthest points of it to activate them and help him with Cirava’s lessons, making it conscious what had before been dormant. How would he explain to the tetrarch that it was an awful, but necessary sensation that loosened him up at the end, like a massage session, or chiropractic? He’d never have enough articulation for that, and always settled with half-formed bits and pieces of information here and there, when he felt a little self-important. It never lasted long, though, but he hoped it would be enough for the tetrarch to eventually figure it all out. His brain was far better than Xefros’ for that; for thinking in general, really, and it was fine. It was fact.

Sitting next to the tetrarch, he caught a whiff of the minty green freshness that were the third-floor showers, the soap used in there. The tetrarch must’ve gone jogging right before this. He wanted to compliment him on it, to bury his face deep on the crook of the tetrarch’s neck, and have those strong, big arms envelop the rest, but all that managed to leave his mouth instead was a how do you do. 

“Sollux is acting weird again.” He added in, quickly, to mask his own shortcomings a little. “But different now, more intense. Did he mention Eridan’s trials to you at all?” 

“Yeah, that’s all he’s been talking about for the last week.”

“I guess that explains it.”

“Why?” 

“I don’t know, he just… He sounds dangerous, is all.”

“He always  _ sounds _ dangerous, but never  _ does _ anything. He’s a toothless dog, Xefros; all bark and no bite.” 

“I know.”

He’d be proved wrong about that not three weeks later, when the first batch of trolls had been signed off to a congressman, and the olympians went for one last trial before the final auction. They weren’t there to see it, but the confusion reached them regardless. 

“Eridan’s in rehab.” Daraya told them over lunch, in the middle of picking at her food. It sounded so conversational, spoken without eye contact or any indication of severity, that it took Xefros a long second to understand what she meant. 

“What the fuck?” He whispered, mostly to himself, as his blood ran colder, and his heart skipped a beat. Wide eyes stared at the tetrarch in the adjacent seat. “What?”

He sought out the same cold and terrifying feeling that froze him in place, and found solace in the half-hidden scowl behind black aviators. 

“What did Sollux do?” The tetrarch asked, voice stern, almost angry, but more preoccupied than that. Worried. 

“Go see for yourself; they’re both down there.”

Xefros felt the food in his stomach come up his throat, but kept it down, forcefully, a hand gripping the edge of the table, his knuckles a pale gray. The last of his friends, in trouble. Possibly medicated, possibly fighting for their lives; it was all the same song and dance over and over again. Sollux, that fucking idiot… Though Xefros couldn’t be mad at him, not really, not when he would’ve done everything and more to keep the tetrarch by his side. He knew Sollux felt very strongly for his kismesis, still chastised him for acting so violently, so mindlessly, but did it in an understanding way. He could see himself in his friend’s place, crystal clear, and hoped nothing would tear the tetrarch from him, not anyone, not even the system. Please, not the system. 

In rehab, laying on a cot and enveloped by the whiteness of the blanket, Eridan’s eyes shone with unshed tears half-hidden under a deep, ugly scowl that carved his forehead in half. Both hands in fists, balled at his sides, and a leg suspended in midair, protected by a thick cast. Sollux wasn’t there. 

“He broke your leg?” The tetrarch asked as they walked in, drawing two shiny violets to himself. 

Eridan’s face was purple with anger, his lips pressed tightly together, and he didn’t answer. That was confirmation enough. 

“What good did it do?” 

“I’m out of the league.”

“He’s been medically terminated.” A voice called from behind them, one that they didn’t have to turn around to know belonged to the Nurse. “There was an infection during the open-wound procedure, and, unfortunately, we weren’t able to salvage him.” 

Xefros frowned. 

“Of course.” The tetrarch commented thoughtfully. “I’m so sorry.”

On the cot, Eridan rolled his eyes. 

“Where’s Sollux?” 

It was high time that he asked it, however much that displeased Eridan to hear, though part of him supposed this was only another of Sollux’s many blackroom tactics to keep the sea dweller in the quadrant. He had Eridan wrapped around his finger, everyone knew that. 

“Disorderly conduct is not tolerated and rebels are buried with others alike.”

At that, he gave her a look. She had just fed him a whole bunch of nothing, and winked down at him, as if to confirm it. 

“You’ll see him at practice.” Eridan spat out, almost disgusted with the words that touched his tongue. 

Sollux was in the bunker? Buried with the others, ah, of course.

“Medically… Deceased?” He asked.

“I’m afraid so.” 

Aradia had been the same case, then, except where fake deaths covered the quiet growth of the resistance, hers had been very much real. He doubted that, going down for practice tonight, he’d find Sollux’s bichromia replaced with pure white. On a tangential thought, however, he noticed that Sollux’s plan had worked, and wondered if he couldn’t simply do the same, or, at least, something similar. With Eridan’s leg broken, and his athleticism jeopardized, he wouldn’t be of interest to buyers of any kind, which must’ve been why they had decided to declare him legally dead. Surely, though, that wouldn’t work with the tetrarch, because his physical strength had never mattered to the humans, but Xefros could think of something. If the Nurse declared them both dead, they could stay together, in the bunker, forever. 

“Sollux is an evil genius.” He commented once they were out of rehab, in the stairway shaft. 

“No, Sollux is an idiot.”

“Why?”

“This kind of shit is suspicious; it makes the officials start paying a little too much attention to us, not to mention the new rules that it’ll cause. Remember when I blew up that car, and, on the next day, they banned us all from using public transportation? Sollux just pulled a me, and I don’t think we’re going to like what comes next.”

None of this would matter if they could just stay cooped up in the bunker forever, but Xefros refrained from saying so. The tetrarch wasn’t ready yet.

He told himself he’d wait a few more weeks, when the deadline would be just about looming over their heads, nestled around their necks like a loose noose, to make a move. He didn’t know what that would be yet, but he had time to think about it.

And he did think about it.

Sollux’s antics caused the campus to forbid any interaction between highbloods and lowbloods, during the trials or otherwise, which made Mallek’s disappearance for most of the day a lovely side effect. Sollux  _ was _ a genius, whether the tetrarch saw it or not. He supposed they both had different views on the matter still, but he’d soon change that, and, if not, it really didn’t make a difference. He’d pull the tetrarch out of this regardless, and the endgame stayed the same. If they both happened to be sent to the same house, to work under the one roof, then he didn’t have to worry a single bit; they’d stay together that way, and it was fine, but if they happened to be sent to two different locations, well, it simply wouldn't happen. He wouldn’t allow it. No. 

By the time they graduated, he had a plan.

At seven in the morning, the bell rung to wake them, and by eight the entire building was being split up into four different buses. Individual trolls of any importance to potential buyers had already moved out, Karkat gone without a word of goodbye, and highbloods no longer inhabited the upper floors of the building, already being coached for next year’s competitions at their respective mansions or laying dead on a cot for misconduct. Eridan might’ve escaped his destiny, hiding safely underground, but not all of them had had the same luck. Gamzee, for one, fell right off the map. Xefros tried not to think about him. 

At the front door, security slapped them each with a sticker, conducting the trolls into one of four long lines, split up by numbers written down on clipboards. His sticker had a two on it, and so did the tetrarch’s, which, he supposed, was a good thing, and pushed them into the same bus together. Good start. The tetrarch held his hand as they crossed the front yard, holding it so tightly that Xefros had to look up into the face next to him for reassurance, but found nothing, only a pair of aviators staring straight ahead, eyesight fixed above his head. 

The tetrarch was fucking terrified. 

It’d be fine, he wanted to tell him. They’d be okay, because he had a plan. It’d be alright. He squeezed the palm in his and followed the tetrarch into their assigned bus, taking neighboring seats. The tetrarch dropped a heavy arm across his shoulders to keep him close, nestled next to each other. 

“It’s okay.” He whispered.

A second arm closed around him for a tight, tight hug.

The bus took them to a part of town that he had never been to before, only seen in the movies, something  _ like _ this, as grand and imposing; a big front yard, a circular driveway, a fountain, and rounded out steps leading up to a wide marble porch. The bus wasn’t allowed into the gate, however, and parked out front, by the curb. The security guard inside told them all to get up and leave in an orderly manner. 

Hand in hand, they exited the bus together. 

The guard stood by the gate and watched, through the bars, an inhabitant of the mansion, a member of the family or their human servant, a rare sight if the case, come over to meet with him. Neither looked at the trolls directly, or referred to them in any way, simply greeting each other with a cold distance before speaking business, as members of the same species do. In the relative silence, the trolls could all hear very clearly that fifteen rustbloods and seven copperbloods had been ordered and paid for. Thus, the guard would deliver. He turned to the group out on the sidewalk, standing quiet, terrified under the sun, and counted off fifteen, then seven, pointing at the tetrarch, to go inside. 

Xefros squeezed his hand; it’d be fine. 

“I need you to not panic.” The tetrarch whispered to him, very quickly, pulling a piece of paper from the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie and slipping it into Xefros’ hand. “We’ll meet soon.”

Xefros didn’t have to look at the paper to know that he was right about that. As usual, the tetrarch was right, but, this time, for a different reason. This time, because Xefros was the one who would make it all happen. 

“Okay.” He whispered back, and had the hand in his own let go. 

The tetrarch turned, followed the others in through a small door on the gate, and was led further into the front yard by the stranger that gave the security guard a brief, but chipper, farewell. From skeptical to friendly, that fast. Xefros hated him, but focused on the back of the tetrarch’s head for as long as he could still see it. 

“Back inside the bus.” The guard called, one hand extended to point at the vehicle, the other gripping his own clipboard. 

Xefros took a wide, long look around the front of the house, mansion, whatever, and when his eyes found what they were looking for, a rock with the number 2525 on it, he glanced up the nearest lamppost around. Brentwood. 

That was all the information he needed. 

The bus took them down the street, around a corner, and along the back of a park that obstructed all view of the houses in that neighborhood. Xefros tried to keep an overall sense of direction, whether they were going north or west of the tetrarch’s house, but the park threw him off completely, and sent him spinning into space like a meteor. No matter; he’d make it there regardless. He knew so. 

He had to.

The bus stopped a second time, parked in front of a considerably smaller house, and had the remaining trolls walk out and cross the front yard with the security guard, no gate this time. A short, bored goldblood was waiting for them on the porch, and was the one to sign the clipboard in the guard’s hand. He didn’t even bother to count them before ordering them to go around the back. 

Xefros considered just taking off right then and there, but soon noticed the big, sturdy men, human men, waiting for them by the side door, and the many eyes that watched him through the windows, peeking from behind the drapes. No problem; instead of escaping right away, he’d wait until nightfall. Not even a big deal. 

The group was led into a small house at the back, all white inside and full to the brim with bunk beds. Without caring to choose a buddy to bunk with, because he wouldn’t be here at all, Xefros decided to inspect the furthermost windows, what they overlooked. A barren backyard, and a tall wall, splitting the lawn between the neighbors. Hm, the wall. He didn’t like the sight of it at all, but the unfenced front wasn’t any better; it was too easy, it was a trap, so this would have to do, he supposed. 

A loud bang, and the door opened, freezing every troll inside by fear. Xefros’ claws dented the windowsill from the surprise. At the door frame was a human, one of the ones watching them before, now carrying a big cardboard box with him, the contents hidden. He placed it on a nearby desk and ordered for the trolls to line up. Xefros, alongside the others, complied without a word. 

Inside the box were tracking bracelets, which were placed on their wrists one by one, and that Xefros didn’t mind. One more insignificant obstacle that would only be a little pebble in his shoe on the way to the tetrarch. Fine. It seemed this place did nothing but excel in annoying him. 

The bracelet was thick and cold, heavy on his arm, a future fun to remove. It didn’t have his name on but a number, which, he guessed, was sequential, because he had gotten the twenty-first, even though there were definitely not twenty trolls in here. More in the humans’ house? The absurd amount of bunk beds for this small group of trolls alone confirmed his theory; they all slept in this shed. Maybe even the Gemini who had signed the clipboard. 

If the tetrarch were here, he’d call that one a traitor. 

His heart squeezed hard in his chest, aching, longing, but he breathed in deep and told himself the soothing truth that he’d see the tetrarch tonight. Soon, so soon. Exhaling, he followed the group of trolls into the humans’ house. 

Manual tasks were split between them, with short breaks for lunch and dinner, but nothing really entered his brain all day long. He listened, and complied, doing the tasks as told, not talking back, and barely looking up from his duties, but it was as if none of it had really burned into his mind; a black hole ate up his recollections, burning all memory between this morning and the very moment that he heard the command to go to bed for the night. That was when he truly woke up, all nestled in bed, under the concave mattress of someone bigger than him. Trolls around him snored as he left the cot, and, very quietly, tip-toed over to the window. It had been open just this morning, but seemed bolted shut now. His hands curled in fists, eyes closed. Fine; they didn’t want to make this easy, okay. He focused on the window, the wooden frame, not the glass, and forced it up. The bolt was ripped out with the unnatural opening and almost hit him in the face. It would’ve hurt. 

Quietly, he slinked out the window and pulled it back closed. Almost no sound was made at all; a good sign. 

Out in the backyard, hiding in the shadow of the little shack, he glanced up the wall between him and the neighbor. Around his wrist, the bracelet weighed. It would go off the moment he stepped out of bounds, he knew that for a fact, so a prompt removal would be a good idea. 

Okay. A lot of focus now, very delicate focus, very pointed, or he’d blow his own wrist up in a million pieces, shattering his entire hand. He had never done this to anything so close to his own skin before, but it was fine. It was fine. He sweated, his breathing quick. Okay. His heart raced, his hands trembled. Okay, okay. Breath in, breath out, he had to do this. He had to. Eyes closed, arm extended out, mind in focus. Okay. 

Now.

A noise, his arm shook, pieces of the bracelet fell to the soft, well-kept lawn, and pain, dull, on the back of his wrist. The skin was grazed, burnt, but didn’t bleed. Good. Still a little shaky, coming down from the anxiety, he breathed, shook his hand a little. He could do this; Cirava hadn’t trained him for nothing. His eyes met with the wall again and blew a huge, loud, messy fucking hole right through it. Bricks fell all around in a heavy, hurtful rain that hit him in the shoulder by accident, that sent a much worse pain right down his arm, all the way to his elbow, but that wasn’t enough to make him scream. The most it got out of him was a surprised whimper.

With the extremely loud noise, lights all around started to flicker, people awakening, dogs barking, but he was gone, gone through the hole on the wall and all across the neighbor’s yard, out the other side, unfenced and unprotected. He ran because his life depended on it. The soles of his shoes slapped the sidewalk along the road, each step quicker than the last, slowly overshadowing the frantic barking that grew more distant the further he ventured into the neighborhood, his small frame a black shadow under the yellow spotlights that peppered the street. 

He had no idea where he was running to, only away from that disgusting house, his brain scrambling to find the park that hid the tetrarch’s prison behind its trees, tall enough to see from afar. He looked up, and they stood in the distance, a glint of hope in moonlit silver. His feet had never carried him so fast, or ached so bad. 

The park was absurdly open, allowing him to just run in and hide in the shadows, a darker spot in the blackness. He breathed, wheezed loudly, his mouth dry and his feet on fire. The lungs under his skin burned through it. Shaking from the adrenaline, he pulled the slip of paper from his pants and unfolded it, brought it out onto a small source of light that shone through the overhead leaves. It seemed to be a list of locations, seemingly random, but a park was on it, and it must’ve been this one. He had to believe in that. Would they meet here? No, they hadn’t agreed on anything, only that it would happen at one point. A list of places, a line connecting one to the other, some connected to multiple. A web, a system. Underground? Ah, the resistance. This was how to meet with them. 

He  _ could _ try to find a door, or a hatch here; a hidden entrance to rejoin the others, but… The tetrarch. He wasn’t coming tonight, of course not; Xefros was the only one who could save him, and hiding away in a park wouldn’t do it. 

Punching Brentwood 2525 into his phone, he learned that he was a forty minute walk away from the tetrarch, and, despite the dull pain on his soles and the aching of his limbs, he immediately got to it. He supposed that running would cut that down to about twenty.

It didn’t. Xefros was in no shape to jog this long, and had an awful shortness of breath that extended the forty minutes into an eternity with careful, but quick little stops to keep himself from passing out. His lungs burned so bad that he could taste blood in the back of his throat, screaming for water, but with none available nearby. All he could do was keep on going, stalking under the shadows, avoiding all contact with any living being; the only survival tactic that protected him throughout the night. 

Number 2525 was hard to miss, all wide and tall, with the stupidly high gates that made him want to bash his head through. He could’ve spotted this place from anywhere on Earth, burned into the back of his eyes. Except, he shouldn’t blow his way through this time. There were cameras in the house and sensors on the lawn, he was sure; this place had a much tighter security than the other one. It must’ve belonged to a powerful figure, soon to be beheaded by the resistance, surely. No doubt about it. Xefros stuck his hand between the bars, and watched the house. Nothing. Kneeling, his hand slid down, down to where he could see the sensors, thin, red lines on top of the grass. He didn’t touch them, instead, followed them with his eyes, all the way to the source, a small metal box, black, sticking out of the ground. Would it make a noise? Would it be too loud? With his heart racing, he squint, and watched the box blow into pieces anyway, smoke coming out of it, the noise modest, almost none. Good. Now for the gates. 

One look, one stronger heartbeat, a resonance in his soul, sparking from his forehead, and a noise echoed from the gate. A dent in the bar, in only one of them, severing it in the middle. Another dent at the bottom, and Xefros pulled the heavy metal bar from the body of the gate, making a hole that wasn’t big enough to fit him through. This was the first time in a long time, maybe since the beginning of his relationship with the tetrarch, that he absolutely loathed his own body again. His stupid fucking belly. With another strain, he ripped a second bar from the gate, placing it gently on the ground, feeling his head start to pound, his heart still beating too fast from the run over. He needed to sit down, and to find a new pair of feet, too. His vision blackened once, his legs threatened to give, and he crouched to avoid passing out. Shit. Crawling through the hole in the gate, and across the safe bits of the backyard, he hid in the big, tall hedge that surrounded the house, knees up and his back pressed to the wall. He breathed. Eyes closed, arms hugging his knees to his chest, forehead leaning on his forearms, he breathed. In, out, long, deep, focused. 

Out. He was okay. It was okay. There didn’t seem to be anyone around patrolling the lawn; he peered through the leaves, watching the stillness of the night for a moment, telling himself he could do this. Believing in it, too, solely because he had to. He could do it. 

When his hands stopped shaking, and his breathing was back to normal, he raised himself up from the bush a little and glanced around. Above his head, there was a window, his way in. He reached for it, tried to push it open, but the latch was on, locking it. One small flick, a quirk of the eyebrow, the latch broke and the window slid open. He got up on both feet, reached for the windowsill, placed both palms flat down on it and the alarms went off. Loud, blaring, searing through his ears.

He panicked. His heart hammered into his chest, smashed past his ribs, his vision blackened, reddened, whitened, and his body lifted clean off the ground, hoisted through the window by a ghostly crane that dropped him onto the softness of a rug. No noise. The sirens deafened him to all other sounds, all reason, all focus, and had him speeding through the living room, or whatever this was; a study, maybe, in the darkness, he couldn’t tell, and simply ran aimlessly past furniture, through doorways, up stairs, searching, looking for something, something, a pair of horns, baggy clothes, anything, a resemblance, a silhouette. 

Speeding through the infinite hallways of the second floor, a shadow caught the corner of his eye, a dark movement, and he whipped around, quick, to see a tall frame, wide shoulders, round head. Round head! Something in hands, long, moving to fix on him, a gun?, he shut his eyes, shrinking himself down, knees bent, the sirens blasting clean through his brain, hands balled into fists, piercing his skin, and he was so fucking scared. He was so fucking scared. His body shook, forearms up to block his face. 

The atmosphere shifted, something touched him, showered him, and he shivered. Nothing. Breathing hard, he forced his eyes open, but the hallway was empty now. His shirt was soaked through with, with something, his hair, his arms, but he didn’t think about it. It was goopy, slimey, slippery, but he didn’t think about it. The human was gone, and he bolted back down the stairs, gripping onto the railing to keep from slipping down the flights. This was clearly the wrong way; trolls would never be bunked near the master bedrooms. 

Down the steps, turning a corner, he bumped into someone, a broad chest, hands that quickly grabbed him right next, and, tetrarch? Tetrarch? The hands pushed him down, crushed him on the steps, and this wasn’t the tetrarch. It wasn’t, it, he covered his face with both hands and curled himself into a ball. A scream escaped him, something from deep within, fueled by fear, that shook him and doused his body in more of the viscous substance from before. Heaving loudly, he waited, waited for the gunshot or the kick or the stab, but there was nothing. Again, nothing. He peeked through his fingers and found the stairway empty. What the fuck, again. What was he doing? The alarm still blared into his brain, too loud, making his legs move and his arms push himself up, his mind running, too loud, too loud and he couldn’t think. Up and down the stairs, two flights, he came across a door. Heavy, big, bolted shut with iron. No matter; his eyes squeezed, his hands balled into fists, and the door’s hinges flew off. The door fell, swung open on the wrong side. He moved it away with a focused thought and walked on through.

A crowd watched him. Horns, many horns, and gray skin under the faint yellow light that illuminated the basement. His heart leapt for his throat; the tetrarch was in here somewhere. He must’ve been. Xefros stepped forward, searching through the many wide-eyed, horrified faces that watched him, and had the crowd part for him to walk further into the cage, not a single soul touching him. His eyes moved quickly, his heart nearly shattered his ribs with each negative result, all faces the wrong shape, the wrong height, the wrong shade of gray. 

Bodies started to leave. Slowly, one by one, and then in twos or threes, the trolls filed out of the room, emptying it in silence while Xefros searched frantically through them. None of these faces were the one, none of these horns, none of the, the, tetrarch. Tetrarch. 

“Tetrarch!” 

It was a shout. 

The tetrarch saw him just as their eyes met, no aviators on, wearing clothes that didn’t belong to him. They had taken everything from him, but not this. Not him. Xefros ran to him, slamming face first into his chest, arms wrapped tightly around the thick body that he knew by heart. He breathed. Really breathed, shoulders dropping, legs almost giving. He did it. He did it. 

“Xefros.” Tone low, careful, nearly trembling. Tetrarch? Xefros pulled away, but only a little, just the enough to look up into the face that watched him, hands still locked behind the tetrarch’s back. 

The tetrarch was terrified. Xefros had never seen him like this, brows furrowed under blown pupils. It shook him to the core. 

“What did you do?”

Fear. There was  _ fear _ in the tetrarch’s voice. 

“I, I’m, I’m here now. It’s okay, it’s--” 

A different set of sirens cut through the air now, not louder than the security alarm, but sharp enough to make itself heard. It was familiar, something he had heard before, out on the street. Police sirens. Those made the remaining trolls immediately bolt from the basement, running up the stairs. Xefros watched them in a sort of parallel reality, mentally outside of his own body, as if none of this related to him. The tetrarch split their embrace, took his hand, and led him out. 

“There’s a hole on the gate.” He blurted out through the dissociation, making the tetrarch throw a brief glance in his direction. “In the backyard.” 

That seemed to also get the attention of some of the trolls around that happened to be running off alongside them, who slowed down just enough to fall behind and follow the two through the maze-like halls. Admittedly, Xefros didn’t remember how to get back outside, but the tetrarch seemed to know his way around a little bit more, and led the few trolls into the one living room that Xefros recognized. 

“Yes.” He whispered, breathing hard. “Here.” 

One by one, they leapt out the windows, landing onto the tall bushes below. From here, they could see the gap on the gate, lit up by the moonlight shine that polished it. 

Trolls ran out in one long line, even longer now, it seemed, as more of the fugitives forgot their own escape plans and followed the group instead, Xefros out front, the tetrarch right behind. They burrowed themselves into the woods of the park nearby, hiding in the shadows. 

“Where do we go from here?” Someone asked. Short, chubby, a troll that Xefros had never seen before, couldn’t even tell their blood color in the dark. They asked  _ him, _ Xefros, directly. Staring him in the face, asked him, as if he knew a single thing. 

“I don’t, I--”

He didn’t know where the hatches were.

Suddenly, his head pulsed, but not out of pain. Ardata. She wanted control. Full control, not the childish playing that she loved so much, messing around to make a troll hit themselves or bend down to kiss her manicures toes. Full control, body and mind, vocal chords and motor functions. She wanted to puppeteer him, and, honestly, he let her. He was so tired that letting her take over felt like release. He shut his eyes and drifted off, up, up into the air, able to see without vision. From the tree tops, he watched himself stop in his tracks, stretch arms and legs, getting comfortable in the soft husk that he called a body, and turn to face the crowd, because, yes, there was a crowd around him by now, with him in the very center. 

Noticing this, he was glad to have drifted off. 

A hand moved up to wipe his face, but, in the darkness, he couldn’t see what caked him, what darkened the tones of his arms and blended with the black of his clothes. Ardata must’ve been curious, too, because she tried to look at it under the light, placing his palm out to no avail. Though, that didn’t faze her. The curiosity was quickly replaced with her usual self-assurance, the turned up nose and model-esque stance, hand on hips, a slightly sarcastic smile on the face. Triumphant. The very opposite of himself. 

“Oh, where do we go from here?” She echoed back in his voice. “If all of you little losers want to live, you’ll follow me. Your leader. Your savior.”

“Please.” The same troll begged, catching Ardata’s attention. “We have to go. Now.”

She smirked. His face barely looked like his own like that. Xefros didn’t think he had ever smirked before. 

“Follow me, then.” 

Off she ran, and the entire pack followed.

 

Epilogue

A knock on the door cut through the echoes of Dammek’s laughter, causing them both to quiet down for a second, attention seized. Xefros even turned his face to glance across the expansive room. 

“Commander, the Helmsman and his Captain await on you to board.” 

They both exchanged a glance, one brow raised, Dammek mildly entertained and himself a little curious. Last time Sollux had invited them out for the night, they couldn’t find him for six hours afterwards, and, when they did, well into the morning, he was curled up with a trash can behind the bar, sleeping. He remembered Eridan making a joke about the snores that had been so funny he almost threw up. 

“Okay.” He called out, moving to roll over the edge of the mattress. “We’ll be there in a second, Aradia.” 

Up at the helm, which Eridan stood behind of, for some reason, the three met them with grins of differing degrees, a couple more emotionally involved than the one, but not that they could really blame Eridan for it; the peg leg jokes must’ve been getting painfully annoying by now, especially because he didn’t even have one. Though, really, it wasn’t  _ their _ fault that Sollux always started with it, one way or another, and Dammek kept the gag running for as long as he could. Xefros was only complicit. 

“Hey, guys.” Sollux greeted, stepping forward to sling an arm around Dammek’s neck. “How’s retirement treating you?” 

“Fuck off.” Dammek shouldered away from him, mock offended. “I’m not retired, I’m plotting. It’s the downtime. Never read The Art Of War by Troll Sun Tzu, you plebeian motherfucker?” 

Sollux jerked a thumb in his friend’s direction, pointing at him with a wide grin on his face. 

“This guy. Love how pretentious he is, asking me about books like anyone’s ever read one. Like they even  _ really _ exist. Almost sounds like mister Captain over there, asking me about boot straps this morning, like I wear fucking shoes.” 

Xefros glanced down at Sollux’s mismatched Vans, one a shiny white, the other a muddled black. 

“You literally make no fuckin’ sense.” Eridan commented in passing, from the helm, staring off over the ship, not seeming to be very involved in any of this. His hands steered the wheel, absently, even though they were docked and Sollux was the only one who could actually sail the vessel. Maybe Eridan just liked playing Captain. 

Before Sollux could retaliate his kismesis, however, a notification sound beeped from the monitor behind them, mounted onto the back of the ship. That got them all turning around to glance at a huge rendition of Mallek’s stupid face, his neck and shoulders stuffed into silly frills. That was usually the only thing that took the edge off of these very inconvenient conferences for Xefros. 

“You’ve got a club meeting going on, Helmsman?”

“Unofficially only, ‘cause you know I’d never get involved with the army. It’d make the Council jealous.” 

“Don’t let him know about last weekend, then.” Dammek joked, eyebrows bouncing, getting a wide grin from Sollux in reply. 

“Oh, last weekend? So he doesn’t know about last Tuesday, then?” 

“What happened last Tuesday?” Dammek asked, tone quick to change, twisted to feign hurt now. 

Sollux waved both palms in the air. 

“Boys, please. How about you tell us why you’re here, LL, so we can get this party started?” 

“Are you hitting the pub again?” This time, Mallek sounded sincerely disappointed, his brows even creasing his forehead a little. If Xefros had to guess, then he hadn’t been invited. That almost saddened him to know, but it didn’t. 

“You knew this, man. I invited you on Tuesday--”

Oh. Well, Xefros was glad that he didn’t feel bad, then. 

“I can’t get away, dude! I gotta be here for this. Ardata’s gonna kill me if I skip another meeting, especially of this size.” 

“Is it about the trade?” Dammek interrupted. 

“Yeah, of course it is. I’m thinking, if we can’t get that iron in time--”

Here, both Dammek and Sollux spoke over Mallek, as well as each other, to reassure the one twelfth of the Council that everything would be fine. That the trade with the humans would work out, because Dammek and Aradia had a plan for it, and the remaining iron would arrive in time, because Sollux and Eridan were on top of it. They had this covered, and Mallek could relax. He worried too damn much over these things. 

“Alright, fine, I trust you, but, dammit, Ardata’s killing me over this. God, I wish I was there right now. I could really use a drink tonight.” 

“Maybe next time.” Eridan commented with a shrug, still emotionally far away from it all. If Xefros had to guess, his mind must’ve already been fixed on the mug of rum that awaited them. 

“Relax, Lord of the Frills. I’ll call you when the iron gets here, and MM’s never lost a battle with AA by his side, so, chill. It’ll be fine.” 

“That’s not my title, and stop using people’s names, Helmsman! We gotta look professional, dude. All of us.” 

“Right, whatever. I’ll mail you a pity shot later.” 

With the push of a button, Sollux turned the monitor off. 

“And here I thought Alternia wasn’t gonna be so overwhelming. That dude’s crazy, legit uncool since he decided to join the Council. I told him Ardata would overwork him there, but he doesn’t listen."

“He likes the power dynamic.” Dammek shrugged, a smirk on his face. “Gets off on rubbing her feet and carrying on orders. Classic kink shit.” 

“Alright, I don’t even wanna picture that. Let’s fucking go.” 

Sollux undocked the ship and steered it into the open ocean as Eridan flicked the toy helm around. 

“So, I know I already told you this before.” The bar was loud, but Sollux’s voice was louder, slurred, cutting above most of the others. Their table didn’t need to make too much of an effort to hear him through the crowd. “But instead of being all alone when MM’s out, you should come with us. Navigate. See some landscapes, you know what I’m saying?” A wink. 

Xefros gave it a nonplussed eyeroll. Again. 

“Sollux.” He hiccuped, a half-empty beer mug in hand. “I’m  _ not _ interested in you and Eridan that way.” 

“Just consider it, dude. With both our mental capacities together, do you know how bad we could--”

“Sollux.” Dammek cut in from beside him, a heavy arm set firmly across Xefros’ shoulder blades, fingers gripping his upper arm. “How many times--”

“You shut the fuck up.” Louder than the rest, Eridan’s thundering voice quieted all of them down from speaking over each other. Eyebrows raised, some curious, most concerned. Xefros immediately glanced across the table at Sollux for his reaction, the addressee, and the only one with a shit-eating grin rounding his yellowish cheeks. 

“No one wants a fuckin’ threesome with you, bastard.” Eridan continued, his own mug awfully empty. 

Out of second nature, Xefros reached for the bottle of rum somewhere amid the numerous empty ones that littered their table and filled Eridan’s mug back up to the top. Eridan barely noticed him do it, his expertise in serving others making him too easy to slip into the background, even though he was literally sitting one chair away from the guy. 

“Personally, ED, I don’t think I’m the problem.” 

“Sollux.” The softness of Aradia’s voice was soothing to the ears under the noise of the full bar. “If I have to sit here and listen to you find a million more ways to flirt with Eridan all night, I’m going to leave.” 

“No.” Small and disappointed, seemingly genuine coming from Sollux’s long face. “Please stay. We need you to find Cirava.” 

“What are you talking about? I thought they were going to join us later.” 

Xefros’ heart skipped a beat as Sollux’s mismatched orbs zeroed in on him from across the table. He wished the lack of irises made it less obvious, but it didn’t. Heat rose to his cheeks. 

“Yeah, they were going to, but, hey, why don’t you ask your Commander about it instead? He knows more than I do.” 

“I didn’t know about the crowd.” He blurted out, the mug warm on his sweaty palms. “Security wasn’t there; it wasn’t my fault.” 

“You still get crowds?” 

“Yes.” Both him and Dammek answered. 

“Tell her what you did, then.” Sollux pushed.

His face must’ve looked embarrassing. 

“I, I was afraid. I don’t know. They caught me by surprise!” 

“He took off.” Sollux continued, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back onto his seat, a foot up to rest on his knee. “Left Cirava behind to deal with it. Great guy, really.” 

“Fuck you, you don’t know what it’s like.” Dammek defended him with heat in his voice and a little too much passion. “You don’t know how bad it is.” 

“No, I don’t, because I’m not the Commander of the Revolution. I didn’t start it, I didn’t pioneer anything, and you know what? I’m not giving him shit for that, because it worked. It was stupid, and it was fucked up, but it worked, even if not everyone sees it that way. It’s not my fault they’re fucking idiots. In fact, I don’t even think they should be here with the rest of us.”

Xefros shut his eyes. That last comment got a round of annoyed groans and resigned sighs from the table in painful anticipation of what was to come. 

“They’re part of us!” Dammek shouted, and, God, there it was. 

Xefros knocked his mug back alongside most of the table. 

“They’re part of our community! We  _ have _ to look out for them, for their freedom, for their rights, no matter what they’ll think of us for doing it. I don’t give a shit if they liked Earth or not; they’re  _ here _ now, and they’re going to fucking like it.” 

“MM, they don’t fucking like it.” 

“I don’t give a fuck, Sollux.”

“Well, you should, because they’re banging on your boyfriend’s door everyday with death threats and stab attempts. Wake up and let them shuttle back down, idiot.” 

“No, fuck you. We get thank you letters and a mailbox full of gifts all the time, too. Some people hate it, yeah, sure, but some people literally cry with gratitude, and I don’t think it’s a one for one ratio. Have you seen how many trolls are called Xefros now?” 

“Fuck that, I’m not talking about the fans, I’m talking about the trolls who murder and steal and want your boy dead, MM. Shuttle  _ them _ back down.” 

“No. This is a society.” 

Xefros raised his hand when a waiter passed by, shouldering his way through the crowd, and just about catching sight of him by pure luck. He came over and took note of the table’s orders for more booze. A lot more booze. 

This was going to be a long night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays and thank you for accompanying me on this journey! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. :)


End file.
